https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=bXDfCrt0J4U
Everybody is trying to note how the virtue is showing up. Just like we were presencing the sage, we’re trying to see how the virtue is being presenced, how we’re exemplifying it beyond just trying to explicate it or explain it. This feels to me like we’re entering Boobers’ house. And it creeps up, and it’s the kind of thing where it has happened already, and you become aware of it after the fact, right? Oftentimes, sometimes you walk into a house and boom, it’s there. But it’s more often that you walk in, you get settled, you get acquainted, and then you just sit there and you’re like, oh, I’m going to go back to my old house. You walk in, you get settled, you get acquainted, and then it just sort of creeps up on you. You’ve already been breathing it in. But then you become aware that you’ve been breathing it in. And it’s already in you. It’s already part of you. You’re already participating in it. So it is with the text, it seems to me. This already seems important to me. This already in the midst of smelling it, in the midst of knowing it, seems… I think it speaks to the relational, the relationality that he’s speaking of as relation as primordial, right? Something like that. Well, because it is. We’re in relation before we are sort of reflective agents. And so by the time we come to a sense of self, we are already enmeshed in a network of relations. It makes me wonder about the connections of the I-Thou-Between-ness that Buber is talking about. And then the notion of agape that people have extended to us and that actually give rise to us. Is part of what we’re picking up in the spirit is also the same, I don’t know what to call it, field? That’s in agape, the way because people have loved us, we have become reflective, cognitive and moral agents. Is there an overlap there? What do you think? Something about that seems correct. I go back sort of to my gut. It’s like, yeah, something about that land. And it sort of brings me back to hearing something Chris said. I sort of had this sense of like, OK, yeah, that smell, that taste of Buber. And it’s like, but I wonder what the we of me and Buber is sort of like, oh, what’s that smell? What’s that taste? I’m still kind of searching for it. OK, that’s interesting. Right. So it’s like what you’re tasting, what you’re smelling. It’s not him. And he. Well, that’s what taste and touch are. It’s the combination. It’s your meeting. Whenever you’re touching, you’re being touched. You’re meeting. Yeah. Yes, of course. Do you think the reverse is the case? There might be some grounding of spirit in sort of the agapic relations that we live within and the phylaic relations. And ultimately, probably also the erotic relations. But is the reverse the case? Is. I’m trying to get. What’s the connection? Can we do we sometimes first experience the spirit that Boobers talking about and then that can engender the loves just as much as the loves may make the spirit possible. Which comes first? I’m not. Yeah. Or maybe neither one comes first, but maybe they have a kind of reciprocal relationship with each other. Well, it occurs to me it’s an affordance. It could occurs to me is it’s an affordance. Which one? Both. Like you said, reciprocal. Right. They’re affording each other. Is that fair? I think so. And then what I’m trying to get is. What would that mean? Because, you know, I think we were all feeling as we were going through the practices were feeling this momentum, something’s taking on a life. It’s starting to reverberate through us. It’s starting to lead us. It’s starting to open us up in ways that we wouldn’t normally open up. So I’m trying to I’m trying to figure out because, you know, Boobers, he’s about the dialogical and I’m trying to figure out what’s the relationship. But what he’s talking about is spirit. And what does it mean for these practices we’re engaging in? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a feeling that something to do with that. That sense in which the spirit in some sense incarnates and then we find out and realize it like that always that already this I would imagine that there’s some connection there that that. Like you can’t it’s it’s intimacy isn’t one of those things where it’s like you go there’s a start. Right. And then you know right where it started. It’s like you’re going to start to see it. There’s a start. Right. And then you know right where it started. It’s it’s something that looks like the logos. It’s it’s you could you can you can set the conditions. But whether or not it sparks right is up to it in some sense. Right. And whether it sparks has something to do with the way that it calls the memory of the relationship that is the one that already is right. It’s like we often talk about how you know good pedagogy good teaching a good conversation. What it does is it’s not new. It’s not de novo. What it does is it allows you to access a memory. It’s an amnesis. Right. It draws something forward that reminds you of the relationship you’re already in and make sense of that relationship in such a way as to allow it to change. And so then the question of the sort of strange paradox of which which comes first is it is it the loving of the relationship that brings forth the spirit or is that the awareness of the spirit that draws forth the love. I think somehow that paradox is resolved by the recollection of already having that spirit. So how does that dynamic which you articulated very well how does that intersect with sort of the presencing of boobers perspective. Because in some sense, presencing boobers perspective is presencing calls forward the presence of every corresponding relationship that is the kind that he means in the first place. So when I hear Boomer Boomer brings to mind every instance every relationship every convoy are talking at the beginning that we’re influenced brought into this by the memory of these conversations that created these wells of memory within us worlds unto themselves and those wells are drawn by his words because he’s speaking into the experiences. It’s by bringing my making him present we’re making memories present that recall the relationships that are grounding all of this out. Right. So one memory leads to another leads to another leads to another in some sense. It’s like what we’re doing in these practices right by by somehow settling in to one another’s presence or settling into the presence of every relationship that is in the offing. It’s not actually here. So are you saying Boomer is present in the sort of renewal or reactivation of either relationships that we’ve had and that’s coming and we’re not just we’re starting to relive them as opposed to just recall them. Is that something like that. I think so. It’s like a felt memory. Right. It’s not just when I say memory it’s a good point though that needs to be clarified. It’s not like oh I remember this person that I really love or this person that I really like. It’s like no no I remember the felt sense the subjective character of the experience of what it is to be immersed in that moment. Well that’s what I was that’s why I was trying to capture this notion of reliving. Yes. Yes. We presence Boomer by reliving the kind of relationships that he was talking about. And that comes alive in it because we’re reliving it. By creating an instance of them. Right. Right. So unfortunately we’re going to have to draw this practice to a close. Everyone that was philosophical fellowship and of course you when you practice this you will not be bound this way. The free speech could go on for hours if you wished it because once you get that spirit that logos flowing. And it gets that sense you can often find it will carry you places that you couldn’t foresee yourself going to. We’re now going to move to the culminating practice. I want to make a clear distinction before we begin between dialectic as a practice and deal logos as a process. You can’t do deal logos any more than you can do friendship. It has to be something very much like what Boomer is talking about that emerges between and takes on a life of its own. And so dialectic is a set of things we do that tries to create the affordance for deal logos. But for deal logos to be deal logos it has to be something that takes shape takes on a life of its own. So Guy frequently uses a metaphor drawn upon an ancient metaphor a metaphor from the pre-socratic philosopher Heraclitus who was the first to really pronounce this notion of logos that then reverberates through Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics and into John’s Gospel and the Bible. And in through Neoplatonic Christianity and it takes on so appropriately so a life of its own. So Heraclitus compared the logos to a fire. And Guy talks about what we’re doing in dialectic is we’re gathering the kindling and we’re arranging a configuration so that if a spark catches it can take on the life of the fire. So dialectic is very much that configuration kindling process. Plato talks about this also in the Seventh Letter where he says you can’t really teach somebody wisdom you have to be with them. And dialectic is a way of really building on everything we’ve already done really deeply being with each other. And then he says if you’re lucky a spark catches and transfers and the flame. And so we are all going to be doing that. Now, if you look at Plato of course they have the figure of Socrates who is the guiding sage for this practice. We do not have Socrates and we cannot wait for Socrates. So what we’re going to do is build upon everything we’ve been doing. And how can we properly be Socrates to each other? How can the logos that emerges between us be our Socrates to guide us further into the practice? And I’m now going to turn things over to Chris who will give us the instructions and take us through the practice. So these instructions have to do with the way we build the dialectic. The instructions are not about sparking the diologos. The idea here being that if we build the scaffolding correctly for the dialectic the diologos has a chance to catch. There’s no guarantee of it. There are all kinds of factors that go into it. And some of it we can’t because it’s not reducible to the sum of its parts. The sum of those parts can’t guarantee its occurrence. But if we build it properly and put the right kind of attention into it, the logos has a very good chance of occurring. So with four people as we are now, there are four roles. There’s a proposer, there’s a listener, there’s a scribe, and there’s a herald. I’ll explain each of those roles in detail. First though, it’s important to understand that this is a culmination of this horizontal dimension that is the way that we develop and understand and deepen the relationality between ourselves as people a la circling, and then the vertical dimension represented by the neoplatonic contemplation. The kenosis to the kenosis to the theosis. That what we’re trying to do in both cases is create a movement of attention. That movement of attention goes from the part, seeing one aspect, understanding one aspect of a person, one quality, one trait, one side, one story, etc. to the whole of the person. That’s not something that we can get around. It’s not something we can hold or exhaust. But the idea behind this practice is that just as we can come into relation with the whole of the person, even though the whole will always remain partially concealed from us, we can give our attention, or our love, as it were, to the person, always with reference to the whole. Always toward it, speaking toward it, listening toward it. Just as we’re doing vertically in the anagoga of the neoplatonic contemplation. The movement from part to the whole. And so that’s what we’re doing with a virtue. We choose a virtue because a virtue is a way of representing and enacting the relationship that we’re already in. We’re all, as we’ve been saying, already in a relationship. And that relationship determines how we apply our attention, what skills we bring to bear, how we organize our priorities, what’s important, etc. All of that, we can say, are features of a relationship we have with a virtue. And with virtue itself. So we’re trying to do with a virtue what we’re trying to do with one another in the relational practice. Which is to move from seeing it as a part and participating in it as a part, to participating in all that it could possibly be, and all that we could possibly be, when we’re known by it properly. So the relationality, the reciprocal nature of that, that to know is to also be known, is just as true of our knowing of a virtue as it is of our knowing of another person. It’s a very difficult idea, I think. And it’s an idea that can only be known by participation, which of course is exactly the point. Okay, so we have these four roles, and we also have three stages of this practice. Four, really. Three in a consecutive order, and the fourth can appear, well the fourth can appear over and over again. So, the proposer, which is the first role, is going to make a proposal. I propose that virtue is. Now in this case we’ll usually choose a single virtue, not just virtue itself. So I might say, I propose that justice is, and I’ll give my proposal. It’s a proposal and not a proposition. That’s important. Because a proposal, think of a marriage proposal, a proposal is not a summary judgment of that virtue. It’s not a definition. The definition is an act, it’s a gesture. It’s not meant to pin it down, it’s meant to open up a relationship, to cast it out ahead, to begin building something with it. That’s why it’s a proposal. It’s something covenantal, it’s a commitment to come to know it, knowing that this is just the beginning of knowing it. That’s why it’s a proposal. The proposer makes that proposal. And then there’s the listener. That’s the second role. The listener will begin with a process of what we call amplification. That’s the first A, the first stage, amplification. And the role of the listener in amplification is to try and draw that proposal out from the proposer, to make it as full and as spacious and as well understood as possible. This is not the time to judge the proposal. We’re not trying to appraise it. We’re not trying to tell if it’s true or false. That’s not the point. The point is to make it as much itself as intended as possible. Because when we speak, we always, what it is that we say is always but a part of what we mean. It’s never the same. The listener’s role in amplification is to draw out the place from which the proposal has come. That’s the object. That’s the idea. And that means it’s not just about the proposition that’s said, it’s about the way it’s said. It’s about the tone. It’s about the posture, the gesture. It’s all of those things that go into conveying. The listener’s paying attention to all of that. Not just the language. And they’ll begin by asking questions of the proposer. So the proposer casts out their proposal. The listener asks questions, pauses the proposer to make sure that they’ve understood. They might offer an example. They might… there’s no clear set of boundaries here. The point is that the listener is trying to draw it out and they’re working with the proposal. This is a collaboration. This is something cooperative. And the listener is going to do that until they are agreed and satisfied that the listener has drawn out that proposal as much as it can reasonably drawn out. Until it’s exhausted and it’s before everybody. After that, they go into the appreciation of that proposal. And the appreciation is, okay, there’s something about this that’s true and that’s real. Real is a better way of thinking about it. Something about the proposal is real insofar as it relates to the virtue. The virtue is this. It might also not be. But for now, let’s focus on the fact that it is. It is justice. What you’ve said, there is something just about the proposal for justice. And the appreciation is a way of almost like befriending the aspect of that virtue that has been called out by the amplification. We’ve made a space for it by amplifying it. Now we’re appreciating it by coming to know it, to acquaint with it. As we do with someone, we’re just first getting to know. That’s the amplification. Now at some point in time, it’s very likely that we’ll reach the end of our ability to explain the proposal. There might be a tension between what the proposer means and what the proposer is saying, and they can’t quite reconcile the tension. Something’s not coming out. Something’s not working. It’s knotted up. I mean something, but I can’t get it out. Or maybe the listener is just quite frankly, it’s not landing. They’re not getting it. Something’s not connecting. We’ve reached an impasse of some kind and we can’t perceive. The language has exhausted itself. And when that happens, we can lapse into silence. Because everything about the virtue that is real, that we don’t have the capacity to say, is in that silence. So we hold company with it. And that’s the aporia. That can happen at any time. Now, that is the relationship between the proposer and the listener. While this is going on, there is also a scribe. The scribe is going to be keeping track of the proposal. Because as the listener is inducing out the proposal, pulling it, stretching it, deepening it, folding it, and flipping it, and as all of that’s going on, the proposal is actually changing. It’s being reformulated. So the scribe is going to keep an eye on that proposal and is going to monitor how it changes. If it helps, you can actually write it down. We won’t be doing that right now. We’ll just be listening and using our memories and hoping they work. That’s the job of the scribe. Keep track of the proposal as it changes. Because the two people who are engaged, they might get too engaged to do that. The herald, meanwhile, the fourth role, is going to be pay attention to everything that is conveyed but not said. What kind of relationship is developing between the proposer and the listener? What’s going on beyond the language? That’s in the body, that’s in the gesture, that’s just in the presence of the space, in the same way that we’re trying to invoke the presence of boober, for instance, in fellowship, and that has a particular scent and a smell. So the herald is trying to keep their nose acute. Once the appreciation is done, the proposer will confirm for the listener that they have in fact been understood. Yes, you’ve heard me. And whatever it is that I meant by that proposal, you have helped me to articulate about as well as I could have. And I have nothing more to add. Once all are satisfied, the appreciation moves into the anticipation. Because just as we’ve made friends with this aspect of virtue, we also know that that’s not complete. Just because we’ve made friends with it, just because we’ve recognized that something about this is real, it’s actually not sufficiently real. There’s more to it. Something’s missing, something’s still in the margins and hasn’t been brought forward. There are ways in which this isn’t actually true. And so that’s the opportunity for the listener to call ahead, to anticipate what may yet be about the virtue that has not been made present and has not been addressed. That’s sort of the eyes going back to the horizon a little bit. Once the anticipation has completed and we’ve made time for aporia where it surfaces, the roles will switch. Now this is a compounding process. We don’t start again when the roles switch. We build. We continue to take what we’re given. The listener who will become the new proposal will take everything that he or she has inherited from the first proposer, everything that they’ve worked on together, and try to keep gathering. Logos, meaning the gathering. That’s how a dialectic has a chance of turning to dialogos, when we continue to gather together what is building, gather it more, gather it more, to find the hidden harmony, as Heraclitus says, right? That movement from the part to the whole is also finding the hidden likeness in all of these aspects as they gather together. And so as the virtue circles through the group, it’s gathering together all of those aspects and elements that otherwise would be stranded and exiled in independent experiences and our relating together and knowing of one another through that virtue is also the virtue coming to know itself. They are the same. Its knowing of itself is our knowing of it. And our knowing of it is our knowing of each other. In some sense, everything collapses into it. And when that happens, this circular motion, the gathering of that momentum goes from dialectic, this structure that we observe closely, to dialogos, which is the fire itself catching. OK, so are we ready to begin? Couple of quick practical points. The scribe and the herald should speak just before the listener enters into the anticipation stage so that they can give the listener that useful bit of information. Another practical point. Everybody is trying to note how the virtue is showing up. Just like we were presencing the sage, we’re trying to see how the virtue is being presenced, how we’re exemplifying it beyond just trying to explicate it or explain it. Third, final practical point. When you’re making the proposal, as Chris said, you are taking, you’re entering into it. It is how you actually are proposing. Try not to quote a technical definition or something you’ve learned here or there. It’s what you would actually, as Chris said, like when you’re proposing marriage, you’re entering into a commitment. What would you commit yourself to? So think about it that way. Those are just the three things I wanted to amend. And you’ve brought to mind one more as well. See, even dialogos. We have to do with dialogos what we do with the virtue itself, which is to try and gather it together, because it is so many things at once. But one more thing, which is that it does happen in the course of this process because we’re putting ourselves on the spot in a very heightened way. And sometimes people can feel that there’s a lot at stake. We’re being called to do something that’s not easy. It’s difficult. It’s challenging. And it provokes in us all kinds of things. It might provoke insecurities. I’m called to make a statement about something and I’m very concerned about being clever. I don’t want to look like a fool. I don’t want to be an idiot. We all have versions of those insecurities, some more than others, but they’re there. And it also happens in reverse sometimes. You can hear someone speaking in the process. And before you know it, what you’re doing is you’re actually making a judgment about them based on their proposal. And feelings of scorn or feelings of embarrassment in either direction might actually come up. And it’s important to acknowledge that that can happen. That’s part of this process. And we deal with them as we do with distractions in meditation, which is to say we acknowledge them, and then we let them pass. We let them go as quickly as they’ve come. It’s important that we not double down on them. And it’s also important that we not feel defeated by their appearance. They happen. We have to allow them to happen and allow them to pass on because we’re not fixing ourselves on the language and on the definition itself. We’re looking always from where it comes and more importantly, to where it’s going. One more thing. The temptation in this practice. So yes, treat projections in dialectic the way we treat distractions in meditation. But one thing you might not pick up on is the tendency to fall into speaking autobiographically. So do not talk about yourself. We are all trying to be what Socrates was, a midwife. We’re trying to give birth. And so everything should be towards trying to give birth to the presencing of the virtue. If you catch yourself in autobiography, just note it and then try to redirect your attention. If you’re the listener to the proposer, if you are the scribe, try not to interfere with your autobiography. Same thing with the herald. So as much as possible, you always have your eye on two things. The proposer and the virtue. I think we’re ready. So the first thing we’ll do is pick the virtue we’re going to talk about. I would like to talk about sophism. Otherwise known as temperance. And more recently, it’s being translated as something like sound mindedness or sanity or moderation or mindfulness. We do not have a good English word, but that’s precisely why I would like to talk about sophism. This ability to properly moderate and attune so that one is sanely sound minded in one’s interactions with the world. John, have you just made the proposal? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that was especially no, no. That’s a good question. That is not me making a proposal because I wasn’t speaking from my experience of that. That was me quoting a technical definition, which is exactly not what I should have been doing. But that was in order to help just clarify if we wanted to take that up as the virtue. I’m fine with that. Great. See what happens. And it’s it’s just a little bit more content with with that with sophism. That this is also the one where he talks about being tempted by the good. That’s something I have proposed. Yeah. OK. OK. Got you. That sophism is that we’re tempted by the good so that we the distinction. And this is how, again, by the way, just like you do the background on the stage, you might want to do a little bit of background on the virtue just to make sure you’re clear about what it is you’re going to be talking about. So there’s a distinction between and Crattier, which is the self-control in which you are holding back and resisting temptation and sophism in which you are naturally tempted to do what is good. So it’s it’s very similar and therefore overlaps in some ways with maturity. But I’ll stop talking because we want to get into the actual proposing. So who shall propose? Who is who is? I will propose first. Who is my listener? Excellent. So just for everybody, proposer. So you count it in order. One, two, three, four, proposer, listener, scribe, herald. And then it will move. He’ll become proposer. I will become listener. He will become scribe. He will become herald and so forth. I propose that sophism is. Is. Being able to apply just the right amount of attention to just the right place. That needs it. Apply the right amount of tension. Attention. Attention to the right place that needs it. Hmm. Can you say more about right? Ah, can I? At any given time, I feel there are a myriad of things that are competing for our attention, even this moment. And. Some of them need that attention more than others. But what I mean by that is that. That in order for my attention to do the most good. There are certain things that I need to. There are certain places I need to put it in order for the most good to be. In order to come closer. With what’s most good. I need to choose somehow. From all of these different things, people. Noises in the world. I somehow need to find that detail. That is calling out for my attention and I need to meet it. And give myself to it. And it’s not easy to do that. And I can’t help but feel that knowing how to do that. Is soft. Hmm. So see if I’ve got you correctly. The way that I hear this is there’s I don’t think you use the word distraction, but there’s a lot that you could. Pay attention to. Hmm. Hmm. It’s not pay attention to, it’s. Hmm. Hmm. Feel lost. Maybe I can give an example. So. For instance, I sometimes find that I lose touch with a lot of people. You know, people I care about friends and whatnot because I’m caught up in whatever I’m caught up in. And I become mindless of the relationships that I have. And all of a sudden it occurs to me that there are a whole bunch of people that I’ve just said I’ve sort of forgotten about. Things and people, but let’s just talk about people. This is true of tasks and things too, but let’s just talk about people. People that I’ve left hanging. And it occurs to me. It’s like, damn, I haven’t contacted this person or I haven’t returned this call or I haven’t sent this text to this person. And they’ve been, you know, I’ve left all of these things unfinished. I’ve left all of these conversations incomplete. And I look at all of this and I go. And I feel overwhelmed. And I get anxious. And I get tired just by the thought of all of these unanswered needs. And they might be my needs. I don’t know that there are any of these people’s needs. They’re mine, my needs. And I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know who to start with. I don’t know where to start. And if I knew where to start, if I could look at all of these unanswered, unfinished conversations and know which of them to take up again. I have this hunch that that would be Sofferson. Yeah, so I’m hearing this overwhelm of choice of how to reengage with something that you’ve lost. And the rightness, I think if I’m getting you right, is sort of that point at which that overwhelm releases. Yes, I think it does. If I’ve chosen correctly, if I started in the right place, the anxiety begins to relieve immediately. Even if I’ve only dealt with one and there are still seven remaining, having dealt with the right one somehow relieves the tension. I don’t need to do it all. I just need to start in the right place. And do you see the starting in the right place as representative of Sofferson? I think so. I think so because I feel that there is a right answer. I feel that there is a right place to start. I don’t think it’s arbitrary. I know it could be that it could be that I could start anywhere. And maybe that would be better than nothing. But I also think that there is something to do before something else. There is some need that is not just arbitrary and it’s not just relative. And if I can find it. Would you say that’s the distinction that makes it Sofferson? Which distinction? The distinction that it could be this other way. But if you start at the right place, you have other ways to achieve the goal in your theoretical problem with your friends. But does that make it Sofferson? That inflection point being like any other way wouldn’t quite be it. Right. Right. Yeah, maybe it is. It’s like there are many routes through the forest. But if I can find the shortest distance between two points, there’s a collapsing effect. I’m getting this sense, right? It’s like you pick the right way, the distance between where I am and this insurmountable volume of all that there is to do collapses together. Think of that in terms of time. Right. It’s like I have to take all of this time. There’s all this time and all this this stuff between me and where it is I know I need to be. I have to cut through this forest. How do I do that? And yet if I find the right task, if I put my attention in just the right place, it somehow bypasses the volume. It bypasses all the time. Not because it’s eliminated all of the tasks, but because the right way has been taken. Would it be fair to say that this is what makes it right? Yeah. And I think what this is, is it’s the telescoping together of everything that is important, all possible, all things that are possibly important into one thing that is most important. And by undertaking the one thing that is most important, everything else that is important has been undertaken. Everything has been resolved by resolving the one thing that symbolizes all of the other things. So maybe it’s a symbolic question. Maybe it’s I need to find the one point that is the symbolic location of all of these other points where they all meet. And knowing which one, knowing where, is something like Sophocene. So maybe one more round of question and then we’ll move to the appreciation just for time’s sake. Yes. I wonder if there’s more. I don’t think there’s more, but I wonder. Does it feel like there’s more? Because then the question I think about is, is the virtue, is the virtue that knowing which one, or is the virtue something about the act of undertaking it? Are they the same or are they not? I don’t know. I don’t know. Because I kind of think that’s the question. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. I wonder if there’s more. Because the thing that prevents me from acting is the volume, is the combinatorial explosion. And then once that’s reduced, I go from being anxious and overwhelmed to finding the possibility viable. But is that enough to actually do it? I don’t know. So maybe there’s a bit of attention there. Is the sopherson knowing where to put the attention, or is the sopherson something about doing the putting of the attention? I don’t know. Without the listener, without appreciation of what they learned, what they broke before, what landed, what was real. What I really appreciate is it sounded to me that you were certain, and then you weren’t. There was almost like the acting as if, and then the consideration coming through. So something about appreciating your commitment to figuring this out that I really enjoy. And really felt with you in that piece where it’s sort of like, is it this or is it that? And it starts to raise questions for me. I’m trying to hold off my anticipation, but it’s also like, oh, there’s something there to pick up on. Yeah, I felt excited, and then confused, and then excited again. And yeah, appreciating what seems to be a desire to really get the preciseness of it. What is it really? Yeah. And what did you appreciate about the proposal? I appreciated the encapsulation at the beginning, because it was almost like, we’re done. That’s a great answer. We’re done. And then it started to unfold for me. But there’s more here. What do we mean by this? And then what is that thing? So yeah, I’m left with mostly an appreciation of the process of going through it, almost as if there’s maybe an exemplification of the virtue that we’re talking about. So yeah, that’s living more in me a bit more maybe than the content. And yet it seemed like it was defined in the first sentence. So as scribe, I saw three main beats to the proposal. There was sort of knowing where to place your attention at the right place at the right time. And then it morphed into knowing how to start. And then it became finding the nexus symbol that will give you some way of addressing all of the concerns through the symbolic center. Is that fair? What did the Herald see in the interaction? What was interesting is that the animation and the stillness was really striking to me. The animation and the stillness. It was like you’d go, and then you’d go, so it’s, right? I don’t know what that indicates or what that means, but that’s what I saw. So taking all of that, you now move into anticipation. What might be missing? What might be mistaken? What’s another aspect? Reflect on that. What’s still mysterious? What’s still mysterious, yes. Well certainly for me is that question, is it this or is it that? But leaning more into, I’m anticipating probably where I’m going to go is leaning more into the idea of having undertaken the choice and that perhaps being the Sofferson, the impact that that creates is maybe the driving motivation to want to cultivate this particular virtue. Yeah, yeah. So I’m sort of thinking, let’s see, I would propose, I guess I’m proposing to you. So what happens here is the role has now switched. He’s proposer, I’m listener, he’s Scribd, he’s Harold. So I would propose to you that Sofferson, adding on to what Chris is saying, is that move towards balance? I’m seeing something here about balance, something about making that, that knowing of that right moment or the rightness of it is something like where, not where it flattens, but where there’s not just a release, but there’s also the reward of the goodness of it. So you were doing quite a bit of like this, what’s going on there for you with that? Well, just trying to fit, one is to find the words, like what do I mean by balance? Like what are the two sides? I’m imagining two sides if there’s a balance, right? So there’s something over here, something over here. So what’s on these two sides? And one occurs to me is, there’s something that I get from engaging in this particular virtue, there’s something that affords me. And there’s also the question of what was the other piece? The other piece is, what is that piece? It’s the, well, to me it’s the release, but it’s also the goodness. There’s also, yeah, keep thinking goodness, like goodness just keeps coming up. Okay, so I want to make sure I’m getting the hands right. One hand is that moving into it, the getting the reward, the release. And the other hand, on the other hand, is the goodness. That’s something different than the sense of reward and release. Yeah, but that’s the thing when you say it, it’s almost like the goodness is the reward. And yet, being with Chris and his articulation of it, there’s also a thing of like, there was like a sense, like a burden or like the overwhelm of it. So there’s something about the overwhelm going away. And I think that’s different than the good that I get. Like there’s the good of like moving into it, doing the thing, the outcome of that is the good, but it’s almost like finding that right point and making that decision to do it. There’s something else that I’m thinking there’s some balance between that. Like it’s not overly egoic and not overly… That’s it. So this is the egoic end, right? But it’s not completely egoic. But the idea is you’re getting release from the burden. Am I getting you right? But that’s somehow like you did this. There’s a relationship there. Is that, although there’s an egoic thing, is it feeding into like this? Is it feeding into the goodness? Like, is that what’s going on there? Well, I mean, it occurs to me that I can’t achieve the goodness if this part doesn’t come into balance anyway. So it’s almost like, yeah, I mean, maybe this isn’t the right metaphor, but something about it feels right. Okay, keep going with it. But yeah, this is something about if I can put this down, then the goodness is there. But I’m not doing it for the goodness. This is the thing that motivates me. This is the reward. Oh, ah, I wonder. Is that feeling right? Let me make sure I understand you. It feels closer. So this is what’s motivating you, right? But that’s not ultimately like the reason you’re doing it. Right. Is that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is almost the perennial problem. This is the perennial problem. And this is, I almost want to say freedom. But that feels tied to this. Because I’m thinking of the good and the relationship that he invoked with his friends, right? Right. Like that reconnection or whatever that is. So this is a connectedness, right? And that is intrinsically rewarding. But this is a release from the burden. And so you have different kinds of motives. This is just a motive, but this is a reason. You liked that when I said that. Was there something there for you? A egoic spirit? Right. OK, so what does that mean? I don’t know. I don’t know. Well, if you want to sit in a moment in a porio, we can. I feel like I’m in that. Is there an egoic good and a greater good? Oh, is that why there was the confusion? Because they’re both goods? Is there a possibility of mistake? Is there a difference in valuation? You said greater good. Yeah, well, I guess this feels individual. This feels internal. This feels more about me. And this feels more… I was going to say real. I don’t know if that’s the right word. This feels more collective. It certainly feels more collective, more relational. Yeah, but I sense there’s a but coming. No, I don’t know. Is there a but? I don’t think there’s a but. But I think there’s a thing like, I’m not finding the right words yet. Yeah. Yeah, but there’s something I still see individual. I still see collective. I see ego. I don’t want to say self-involvement, but I see ego. I see relationship. Hmm. Maybe softness is when both of these needs are met. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to get at with a balance. What’s the relationship? It’s the collapsing again. OK, we’ll move into the appreciation stage now. But first, I want to make sure I understood. So you were really honing in on there’s this balance. You’re feeling in softness, and you’re really working at, like the one side is sort of not necessarily selfish, but maybe egocentric. It points this way. Its directionality is this way. And its reward, its good, is a release from the burden. But it should also afford this way, where you’re pointing at others. Is that what I saw you do? And that that is also a big part. And softness is getting the balance between those right. How’s that? Yeah. I mean, that lands for, that feels right. Yeah, I think that’s what I was trying to convey. So what I really appreciate about how you did it is the fact that you were really, really willing to move into the embodiment. And the body was helping you articulate as much as anything that was coming out of your conceptual reflection. I really appreciate it about that. What I appreciate about the content of the proposal is adding this dimension. Now, because I’m moving towards anticipation, I’m going to start to use a little bit of sort of an individuation and a participation pole. Yeah, you like that, right? And there’s something going. So not only is there the collapse that Chris is talking about here, here is the nest of burdensome problems. I find the nexus that collapses the nest that collapse this way also has to balance between the individuation and the participation. How does that sound? Yeah, that sounds great. OK, so we’ll listen to the scribe and to the herald scribe. Scribe. Let’s see. I think mostly I just heard that the proposal is just basically when you identified the balance and just working, I saw you go back and forth between the ego and the spirit or what we talked about. And pretty much, embodyingly, you stayed right there with those things and worked that out. And I appreciated that. The tactility is really quite something. This is the first time I’ve seen this in a dialogos because it’s the first time in some ways that it’s been possible. There’s a moment when you literally have it in your hand. And there’s a moment where you lean forward and you put your hand on it. And you’re both touching it together. It’s quite something. And there’s something remarkably tactile about the way that the two of you, hand in hand, with the matter on your hands, are actually trying to use that imaginal space to feel it out. That was quite powerful. And I think that had a lot to do with where you got, where you ended up, was being able to do that together. OK, so taking in what the scribe said and the herald said, taking in what Chris said, what Taylor said. I want to propose that sopherson is actually the ability to find not just the collapse of the problems or the individuation of the participation, but the tone-offs between the many different ways that we can use the word to describe it. And I think that’s one of the different ways in which the good can appeal to us. So Taylor was talking to how the good can appeal to us egocentrically, or how it can appeal to us in our connectedness to the world. Chris was talking about sopherson, getting the right, getting between, but not just arbitrarily, but finding the collapse. So picking up on all of that, I want to propose that sopherson is when that happens, when the center periphery, individuation, participation, balance, collapse, is actually self-organizing, as opposed to something we’re doing. So sopherson is where the balancing, the collapse, the participation, the individuation is in such a way that it just self-organizes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds really good. So after just having said it and me saying it back to you, how does it look to you? It looks to me that I appreciate that it’s good. I’m wondering what the affective poles are. So this is burden to release. This is the good of being with others, but it carries the bad of dissolving. And this is the good of individuating one’s agency, but it carries with it the bad of isolation, alienation. This carries with it the risk of rigidity. So the good is the release of the burden, but it carries the collapse into rigidity. This, on the other hand, this movement, it has the good of opening you up so you can take more responsibility, but it has the bad of overwhelming. So what I mean is the self-organization is also between, we’re trying to get this self-organization between the good and bad within each axis, and we’re trying to get the optimal place between all of them. And you’re saying, is what you’re saying, Saffron is the thing that does the balancing? Right, but not. Or knows the difference between when it’s too much or not enough or too far forward or far back? But not like something outside of it, like a homunculus. The Saffron is the self-organizing of the balancing between those. Yeah, so the Saffron is the self-organizing, which is the balancing between those. Right, so what’s coming off in addition to the circling is the idea of things playing off against each other, almost like a concert. They’re playing off against each other, and they’re working out together a harmony. They’re playing off against each other, and those two are playing off against each other, working out a harmony. So they’re avoiding their respective bads and affording each other’s respective goods. Yeah, yeah. Did that make sense? I think so. OK. Right, so they’re avoiding each other’s perspective bad and moving towards their perspective good. Yeah. Right? So the individuation holds the participation from becoming lost, and the participation holds the individuation from becoming alienation. And then the collapse prevents this from being too much, but this prevents this from being too narrow. Yeah. And so they’re playing off against each other. It seems like every hand gesture that you’re doing is that. As it’s moving, it’s in consideration of the other one. Yes. Right? Yes. And when it’s missing, so for example, when it’s missing, when it’s not in consideration of the other, we can say that’s not Safrasun. Right. So the elasticity metaphor comes to my mind when you did that. When it’s missing, it stretches, and then this gains a momentum, an inappropriate momentum, and captures us in some fashion. Yes. Yes. OK. How does Safrasun, how does the self-organizing, I’ll put it this way, how does it know the right organization? How does it know? I think it knows because what we’re doing is it’s almost like warm cold. Right? And that’s why I was trying to concentrate on the affect. Yeah. When it’s getting, ah, right, right, oh, right, it’s getting better. Right? And so it’s doing that. Right? There’s all these little micro adjustments that it slowly hones in when it works, when Safrasun is present. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it works and Safrasun is present. God, that sounds, I mean, I’m just left with, that’s pretty rad. OK, well then let’s move. Let’s move. Is there? It sounds like you’re already in appreciation. To use a deep, ancient Greek word. Yeah, so you could just go into appreciation. Well, actually, before I do that, how does that proposal feel to you as you sit here now? I feel I’ve done everything I can do with it, and I want to pass it to you. Yeah. OK. OK. Great. So what I’m appreciating is, one, is how it included all of what came before. And it seemed like a natural progression of, when you said self-organization, that’s when it went, pshh. Right? And the other kind of moment that went, pshh, was the thing of how they tune to each other. One, as one goes back, the other one goes back, and they’re in consideration of each other on all these different dimensions. I really like that. And that’s the way that they self-organize. So it’s like everything’s about it is, I feel, the gathering of the proposal and what you’re saying. So I really, really appreciate that. Are you ready to move into anticipation? Yeah. So we should hear from the scribe and the herald. So the proposal begins by integrating the two previous ones and saying, OK, so there’s two axes to this, right? One axis is somehow the selection of the right way, the right object of attention, and of this myriad of other objects. And to do that on one axis while on the other axis, somehow mediating and attaining a balance between the individuating aspect and the participating aspect. Reconcile the needs that are personal and individual with the needs that are communal and social, and have somehow keeping all of that intention at the same time. And that when that process of keeping those things in balance becomes self-organizing or dynamical, even we might say, that then is an instance of sophism. That’s how it began. And then as it went on, it acquired this attunement to the good and the bad. That somehow, while all of that is going on, the way in which it happens is a kind of socialization and a harmonization of the way in which any one of those can become vicious or virtuous. And that it’s steering a kind of middle course between the potential vice that’s inherent in each direction and the potential virtue that’s inherent in each direction, and steering that course in such a way that everything is kept in perfect harmony. And the keeping of that perfect harmony by having all of those elements acquainted together and harmonized is sophism. That’s what I heard. Mm-hmm. Excellent. Yeah. So the thing that stood out the most for me and reflected the listening and the sharing was your decision to start mirroring physically to match, to meet John where he was somatically as he was going through it. So I really appreciated that because I’m making some assumptions of how you internalize where John’s at and how he’s sort of wrestling with it to help you ask sort of the right next question. Yeah. Yeah, so I was really appreciating that. And just, yeah, especially also at the beginning, like the real clarity of sort of like conviction, like, OK, so it’s this. And there was something about that that seemed like you were both ready to go. So through an anticipation, through finding myself mirroring your gestures. And it was literally it was literally like I was mirroring your gestures, finding myself into your words. I have a feeling that if I wouldn’t have mirrored your gestures, I to grok the words first wouldn’t be to understand what you’re saying. And that seems important here. And also with the self-organizing aspect, right, of this of this kind of mutual drawing away while being concerned for the other poll mutually. And that going back in all of that self-organizing going on in the the tonas running through that and developing all of that. There’s something I anticipate here, something that there’s something core about embodiment, right, that I want to. That’s mysterious that I want to I want to touch into about about Safferson. OK. Try this. Are you proposing? I’m I’m posing that. Oh, yeah. I’m proposing. And. Safferson is the way. The good. Embodies the world. Who? Safferson is the way the good embodies the world. More specifically, Safferson, if it’s not the way that embodies the world, it’s it’s the way it’s the way that because I think I am having this sense of there’s this this self that the embodied self world, you know, it’s the way that the world is. And I think that’s the way that I’m going to be able to really build the agent arena. Relation, and it seems like Safferson has to do with this between right. This is almost like if the self organization is not in me, it’s not it’s not just in here. It’s in it’s extended into the every task that I’m doing, like isolation, not going like dissolving into into relation of participation. If Safferson is this is this back and forth self organization, right? It’s it’s got this eye on the between. And so I want to say that Safferson is. Is the self that the self that self organizing the self that self organized is the betweenness between me and the world. That’s where Safferson exists. And. What lets me know, though, right? What what lets me know to hit that middle point in that self organization? I must already have some glimpse of that it would be good to be there. Right. OK, so hang on. So, OK, so you’re saying a couple of different things. So you started by saying, so the self is the way. Sorry, Safferson is the way that the good embodies the world. OK, so then you’re saying that there’s something to do with my relationship between the self and the world, the way in which that the good is not simply in the world, it’s not simply in me, but the way in which I do everything that has come before, because you’re sort of pulling together everything that’s come. Right. This balance between the participation and the individuation, right? Between the myriad of things and the one thing that’s most needful, that all of this collapsing and balancing and harmonizing is ultimately something that’s happening between me and between the world. And that there’s something about embodiment that’s key to that. What about embodiment is so key to that? In that way that the in the in the mirror, in the milseo ponte sense of embodiment, right? In the cognitive for cognitive science, that sense of the embodiment as extended, embedded, right, as beyond itself, as ahead of itself, as it’s like in some sense. I’m already my sight is is both when I look over there, it’s here and there at the same time, right? There’s this kind of way that the body, the body extends out and gathers the world, touches the world and is touched by the world. And it’s it’s it’s doing all this. Right. Yeah. OK. So it’s it’s almost like it’s almost like the. I want to say that I want to say something that this is why I want to say with the good. There’s something here about the good. That it’s almost like it’s the way it’s the way it’s in some sense, this is what our bodies are doing all the time. Right. So like, is I know, I know, I know not to be up here like this. I know, like I’m I know not to be too far back. I’m always here. And in every single sense, I’m in the right proportion. And something is self-organizingly doing all of that. Right. So what’s the difference? So, first of all, what’s this? You were doing this. Is this is this the move? Is this the sort of is this the reciprocal movement between agent and arena? Between self and world. OK. So then if all of this, if all of that, like if the way you know not to be here and to be here, you already know that. Yeah. OK. You’re already doing that. You’re already doing that. You’re already doing that. You’re already doing that. Yeah. OK. You’re already doing it. Yeah. OK. So here’s the question. Most of us are already doing it all the time. And we wouldn’t say of them necessarily that they have softness in. What’s the difference between. Softness in and the kind of self-organizing, neither too close, neither too far, that is always happening. Yeah. Even in the absence of virtue or is it all softness in. Well, I want to say that it’s like if it is, it’s soft person at different levels. Right. Oh, OK. Is what is probably how I think it makes sense. It’s at different levels and. It’s even it’s it’s even. Yeah, it’s this. We’re constantly doing that, right? And so to use your example of like, OK, who do I call first? Right. There’s this. This sense of the thing, it’s like I want to say soft person is that that thing that knows to do this, right, because it’s knowing it’s doing this while simultaneously feeling what’s too far forward, what’s too far back. Right. And that seems to be it. That seems to be connected to the good. Right. So it’s it’s like that’s why I’m saying like maybe maybe soft person. Is the way that the good embodies the world or at least your relationship with the world. OK, yeah. OK. So is when you say the embodiment as an act, that the embodiment has something to do with the way that this is kind of that this is that this is modulated. We’re all doing some version of this all the time. But then soft person is just knowing how to do it a little bit more precisely. And is this the exercise of the embodiment? What’s the where’s the embodiment? The world. So here’s how it is. How this is how it gets in the world. It’s like you do it at just the body level, at a functional level. Right. And then that gets integrated. Right. When you’re a kid, like where you can move and you can walk and you can stand and that becomes integrated and self organizing. And you don’t have to think about it anymore. Then you learn how to speak. Right. And you’re going back and forth with speech and phonemes and then you learn how to speak in such a way that that becomes self organized. Right. That. And then these two levels are self organized with each other. Right. That that’s kind of building from the bottom up. And that bottom up is the embodying that is the embodying up. So soft person, I think, as we normally talk about it, like would be. You know, there’s the the current thing that isn’t automatic, the project that I’m working on, right. The, you know, organizing my life in such such a way. That when it goes from not having soft person, right, to all of a sudden, you know, Chris, you no longer have anyone that you need to call because they’re already called, right, they’re already there. Once that happens. That like, yeah, once that happens, that’s now embodied. And OK, OK, OK. So what I’m hearing is that that this that that the self. OK, so I’m hearing you making an identity relationship between two things, between the kind of the self organizing quality, the self or the self organization itself that John introduced and the process of embodiment. That when I’m so, for instance, if I’m pouring over decision and I can’t figure out what to do and I’m consciously bringing myself to bear on the task of where to put my attention, it’s not a sufficiently embodied exercise precisely because it still requires the effortful strain of my conscious attention. But then when that straining attention becomes governed under the self organizing quality that knows just where to place it, just so at just what time, then you would say that process has become embodied. Is that fair? Yes, that’s fair. OK. So does that so you when you first said the proposal, you said that Safferson is the good and the good scribe or so. Safferson is the way the good is embodied in the world. Thank you. OK, so the self is the way the good is embodied in the world, the way the good is embodied in. OK, what do you mean in that phrase? Is that are you still happy with that? How does that Safferson is the way the good is embodied in the world? How does it feel now? I, I think it, I, it feels like this. It’s doing the thing right, right. I’m drawing with my nose, right? Yeah. And well, this is also this is there’s this other cool thing about it, you know, where the way that John talked about earlier in explaining Safferson is this inclination or urge to do the right thing, right, that that sense of not just putting off the bad thing. I would imagine that that somebody who has that in their life, the structure of their life, their room is set up in such a way that it’s already. It’s it supports, it supports that right. It reflects it and it supports that right, that the world is literally set up and shaped by that and in that sense. And so in so in that way, I step into that world and it’s it’s supported in every single direction. So therefore, I’m just of course, I’ll just have the urge to do the right thing. Right. OK, so I’m getting the sense that that Safferson is what we have, what we do and what we are when the kind of self organizing sense of attention that knows just how to dispose the different things that fall into the frame becomes when when more and more and more of the world is engulfed by the body of that attention, yes, right, when my body becomes more and more coextensive with all of those things that come into my I feel I have the sense of like I feel like when you’re talking, it’s like you’re pouring yourself out and marrying with things. Yes. But also notice that as we’re doing that, our hands are getting higher, farther and also this is this is the good. Right. It’s climbing up. Right. OK, so there’s this horizontal coordination. Mm hmm. Right. And once you get that, you’re standing on that and there’s this. But then that starts to organize with this and it starts to get right. What you what isn’t what what starts to take your attention is now sitting on all these things and it’s just closer to the sun. So in that sense, it’s the way that the yeah, I guess it’s the way that the the good embodies literally the world, the world. Right. When the body is. Come on, I can just said that in the beginning. How come? OK, I think I’m ready to do some appreciation. So this idea of the body is really, I think we’ll just end with the appreciation because we won’t we won’t continue on. This idea of the body is really interesting, that this idea that that I get this image when you’re talking of the when the body and attention become somehow one, because oftentimes when we’re not living in Safferson, the body and our attention, in other words, the repetitive. Right. And then what we might call the higher faculties are at quits. They’re at variance. They’re not coordinated, which makes us all very platonic, which makes us all very appropriate. Right. That somehow Safferson is the alignment of the embodiment with the attention that knows the highest good and that when the when attention and the body, the body in the kind of more extended sense that you mean, are somehow married in their orientation to the good, that they somehow mutually reinforce the act of extending that that’s that process of mutually reciprocal extending that they’re doing into one another and outward from one another is actually Safferson at work. Yes. That’s the sense I’m getting. Very good. Very good. All right. So let’s pick this up. That was the dialectic. And what you can see is a gathering together and organizing itself and catching fire. We’re all in a state of momentum now. I feel it where we could all now we all want to talk. And what would happen, we won’t do that for time’s sake, is we would now pass into free speech in which we would just let that go and let that run, because now the gathering together, the catching fire, the self-organizing, the ability to reciprocally flow with each other, to cause each other to emerge. It’s like we’re jazzing. You can see how it got passed along and it grew. And you wouldn’t have thought of that on your own. I wouldn’t have thought none of us would have. But we got to this place. And then what we now do is we take that momentum and we take what we have and we go into it and into it and we just let it free flow and we let the logos take over and we just follow it wherever it goes. And then we’re into the logos, free speech, free flowing, continuing the jazz, carrying the melody along, etc. So, my dear friends, we have done the entire pedagogical program that takes us into dialectic, into dialogos. I want to just say one sort of final point about that practice, which is its place. Dialectic into dialogos is not a standalone practice. Dialectic into dialogos is a meta practice. We are trying to actualize and educate collective intelligence into something like collective wisdom so that we get a deeper understanding and a deeper connectedness to a ratio religio, to the virtue. This is therefore a normative guide to us. This guides us. This is our sage. This is what Thich Nhat Hanh said. The next Buddha is the Sangha. This is the sage. So dialectic into dialogos, properly cultivated the way we’ve done it here, is the meta practice that acts as the guide to an ecology of practices. So you’re doing mindfulness practices, you’re doing movement practices, you’re doing, right, perhaps some imaginal practices, you’ve got your ecology of practices, the design of that we’ve talked about in other places. Dialectic into dialogos is meant to be in relationship with the ecology. The ecology keeps birthing questions of virtue and guidance, requests for guidance to dialectic into dialogos and dialectic into dialogos keeps paying attention to and cares and curates for the ecology of practices. That’s how we can be Socrates to each other. But Socrates can’t do the ecology of practices for you. You still have to do those. And the ecology of practices give you some of the skills and the prerequisite virtues for engaging in this kind of project. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you, Guy. Thank you, Chris. And thank you, everyone, for your time and attention. You’re listening to music. Someone is playing music. You don’t say, jump to the end. Give me the final two couple notes or even the final note. I just want to get to the end. Yes, the music has a goal. It’s moving somewhere. But the goal is to structure the activity that is pursued for its own sake. And of course, prototypically, making love with someone. Which is maybe different than having sex with them. Think about this. The point isn’t to get to the end. You don’t want to cut out in between. You don’t want a shortcut.