https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=Z0R7kiFs2Ds
Welcome everyone to our monthly Q&A. It’s a great pleasure to be here. I want to explain that we moved the time. It’s usually the third Sunday of the month, but next Sunday is Father’s Day, so that’s why we moved it to this date. I hope that didn’t inconvenience very many of you. I hope it was actually helpful to many of you who wish to celebrate Father’s Day. So let’s get to the questions sent in from patrons. The first question is from Scott Rowan. Thank you, Scott. It’s good to hear from you again. Dr. Verveke, I hope you’re keeping well. I am. Thank you for asking. I recently watched your video with the amazing Rick Rapetti. Yes, he is the amazing Rick Rapetti. That’s what I call him too. On free will, no free will. I followed the argument to the point that neither position can be absolute as there are problems with both. Yes, there are deep problems with both positions. Taking all factors into account, you discussed with Rick, could you please clarify your position if possible on where you finally sit on the debate. Many thanks as always for your life-changing work. Warm regards, Scott. So for those of you who may not have seen it, the argument is a very powerful argument. The arguments against free will, at least the idea of free will, as the fact that you are some sort of unmoved mover, that you start a causal chain that in itself is uncaused within you. The arguments to get that is that it would make you completely arbitrary. It would make you a being that was in no way responsible ethically, epistemically, et cetera, aesthetically to the world. As I’ve often said, I do not regard freedom as an absolute good. I regard it as an instrumental good. I am free in whatever sense that is meaningful, which is what we’re discussing, to the point where I can get to my goal, which is to have my thoughts totally determined by the truth and my actions by what is good and my sensibility by what is beautiful. So part of what’s going on there is to realize that we don’t want an absolute kind of freedom, and then it’s unclear how we could ever obtain evidence that we had such a thing, because we could in no way causally probe it, because it is unreactive, because it is never an effect. It is only a cause. So these are all of the kinds of arguments that build up against absolute free will. So in that, there’s arguments against absolute determinism. Absolute determinism depends on some notion of law, natural law, and as Rick correctly pointed out, if you take that to be a non-deflationary account of law, if you mean we’re referring to something real, referring to real constraints on reality when we’re talking about law, then we’re invoking a modal sense, because laws are counterfactual predictions. They predict things that have not yet happened or might not ever happen. So E equals MC squared would predict that if there was enough uranium in this room, there’d be nuclear fission, but I predict to you that there will never be that amount of uranium in this room, and therefore nuclear fission would not occur. Nevertheless, the statement I just made based on E equals MC squared is regarded as a true counterfactual. It’s how we explain events. It’s how we predict events. You say, what does all of that mean? What all that means is that determinism depends on there being real counterfactuals, real possibility, which of course is something I’ve also been arguing for, that we have to understand possibility as equally real as actuality, and this goes into things like laws. It goes into if you believe in potential energy, you believe in conservation principles, et cetera, you have to believe in real potentiality, which is real possibility, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which means if there are real possibilities, then strict determinism, the way it’s typically understood in the sense of it could not be any other way, falls apart. So, sorry, Scott, you watched all of this, but I wanted to at least give people the gist of the argument. So the gist of the argument is both positions collapse, and then we also realize that it’s not clear what we actually want. So here is my position on this, which will be frustrating. I think that the best response, and that’s what I tried to indicate with Rick, I think the best response to this is the meta-argument. The fact that both positions so terrifically collapse, and the fact that we’re not even clear what it is we think we want when we claim we want free will, points to the fact that this is a question to be dissolved, not resolved. It’s like asking what’s north of the North Pole, or what time is it on the sun? It sounds like we’re asking something, but we probably are asking it from one of two metaphysical frameworks, both of which do not seem to be actually viable. Or another way of putting this is we cannot properly resolve this question of free will or determinism because of our notion, the notion of reality against which it is set is not properly formatted in order to bring to the fore the issue we are trying to put our finger on. As I said, once we start to talk about self-organizing systems that are embedded, we face the fact that no, nothing we point to is actually the cause. We are always making judgments of causal relevance. What led to the sinking of the Titanic? Well, it hit the iceberg. Oh, is that why it sank, or is it because the metal was brittle, because British steel had impurities, because the water was cold, because of the time they were going, because the iceberg had traveled at a certain rate from when it broke off, because there had been an ice age that had created the iceberg, because Britain had coal deposits and a certain Protestant history that had led to the Industrial Revolution and it was ahead, but the United States had just become a significant power and was challenging British, like, ah, and then what you realize, and this was Whitehead’s point, is the actual cause of any event is the entire previous history of the universe. And then that’s the case for each event. Somehow everything is in each event, and each event is part of the everything of each other event, and that’s a mind-boggling way of thinking. And it doesn’t fit with our linear narrative ways of how we talk about acting in the world. It doesn’t fit into our narrative story mold. Here’s my proposal to you. What we’re doing is we think we can fit the structure of being into narrative story molds, and we’re ignoring the fact that actually all we’re ever doing when we’re asserting a cause is we’re asserting which particular relation is the most relevant to explaining a particular feature of the universe. So if you want to know why the Titanic sank, you can then say, why did it sink so quickly, or why did it sink on this date, or why was it a British ship that sank, right, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I’m something of a spinizist. I think the only entity that could be God is the, sorry, that could be free is God or nature, the entirety of being as it is as a self-organizing reality, and that we are actually not capable of that kind of freedom because we are precisely a proper part of reality and we participate in it. What are we potentially talking about? I think we are confusing metaphysical will when we talk about free will with political freedom, which is the idea that what I’m talking about when I’m talking about cause is not the full-blown cause. I’m talking about what relations are the most relevant to explaining a particular set of events. And then to say that I’m acting freely is to say the most causally relevant factor for my behavior is the self-organizing processes within my embodied brain and between my embodied brain and the environment. And then you say, well, that gets really fuzzy, which is exactly the point I’m making. But what we mean is we want the environment and us to fit together, and we want the self-organization of our bioeconomics and our brain to fit well with that so that we want to want what we want, to put it in the way Frankfurt puts it. And then you can always say, you know, ala Sam Heras, but where did that want come from? Surely it was cause. And it’s like, that’s not what we’re talking about anymore. We either say the useless, what caused that, the entire history of the universe, or we try and shoehorn it into one metaphysics or another, which both seem inadequate for the job. Or we fail to recognize that we’re trying to fit something that is not a story into a story mode. Or we can put all that aside and say, perhaps that’s an incorrect way of thinking. What I’m always actually doing is trying to zero in on where should I look in terms of the most relevant factor to explain the relevant aspects of this relevant part of the universe. And that’s not as exciting. But for me, that’s way more important because that then lines up with, well, what do I want to be the most relevant? I want the true, the good, and the beautiful to be the most relevant. And I want it that I want to want what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. And if I’m completely determined in that, I’m the happiest I can be, the virtuous I can be. And why isn’t that what I always really wanted when I wanted freedom? We have overemphasized what we’re free from. We’re free from the iron bars of determinism. What are you free to? So I know that my position is not what many people want. Many people want one side of this argument to be decided, cited for. But what came out from the discussion with Rick, and I have to be very grateful. Rick is such a wonderful person to dialogue with. But what came out of that for me was a profound Wittgensteinian sense that something was going on in the universe. And I wanted to understand how this mis-framing was occurring. It’s still something I’m reflecting on. And so Scott, I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. I want to ask you to tell us about your view on freedom. What you really want to be getting at with the question, and that is what I’ve tried to answer. So thank you very much for that excellent question, Scott. So I’m now going to move on a question from Bumbul. Sorry if this is a repeated question. I’ve been following your work for over a year now, and it’s slowly changing me and my arena. Changing me and my arena. Thank you for saying that that’s very encouraging It’s good to know that my work is making a difference in people’s lives That’s that’s what I most want what I’m still struggling with is figuring out the ecologies of practices to try yes I loved your last Q&A answer on how to cultivate wisdom and kids it clearly articulated types of practices and their purpose Do you have a secular rep do you have a similar recommendation list for adults? Anywhere for adults no I do not I’ve got lots of some videos where I’ve been working on this One of the projects I want to do this summer Probably be doing it in August is to work with other people who are both you know I hate this term thought leaders, but there are people who are generating relevant theory But they’re also community builders right and and they’re building ecologies of practices and Try to answer the meta question Which is what I tried to do when I was answering the the the the issue about the ecology of practices for kids So this is a properly pluralistic answer which means there’s a universal Process but the content the particular products can vary And so what I mean by the meta question is exactly the design features like I did with the answer to the ecology of practice of kids What are the design features we want in? Ecologies of practices I mentioned like we want them to be there’s to be a part of processing We want them to bridge between the different kinds of knowing we want them to have a pedagogical scaffolding etc And I want it and I’m key. I’m continuing to work on that. I’m going to Rafe Kelly’s return to the source at the end of July to participate deeply in his ecology of practices Some of you might be Pleased to know that David Fuller from rebel wisdom is going to be there as well filming me there so You’ll get to see What I’m talking about when I’m you know Holding out Rafe’s work as an exemplar So I I want to write something Fairly Not finished, but I want something that’s that’s clear and that is you know definitive enough to be Widely applicable and usable when people are trying to cultivate the colleges of practices so what what you know, like I said, there’s those principles of You know point of processing layering alignment Pedagogical program there should be a relationship between the ecology and a meta practice such as dialectic into the logos that taps into distributed cognition And there should be relationships between theoretical practices and artistic practices people like Rachel Hayden are doing work around that I Want to get an overall clear picture and then also list? Potential, you know potential practices that people could consider And I hope to have that done sometime I Hesitate to make promises because this is a thunderbolt of a summer for me. There’s so much happening but I Will try to get I want to do this I Like I want to do it well, and I want to do it responsibly working out a document for Providing guidance like I said with the help of other people about like what are the meta principles for ecologies of practices? And get more clearly and then write something Make it available as widely as possible you can sorry for I’m sort of sort of stumbling over that because I’m I’m thinking about you know, I’m thinking about exactly How I’m gonna try and make everything gel sort of logistically But I do want to know I do want you to know that I’m very committed To this question and I’ve committed time and space to working with other people on it. I take it very seriously And we need to get to a place Where we get this the sweet spot between the best theory the best experience from practitioners and communities, right? and the best sort of Pedagogical orientation to generate exactly what you’re asking for So that’s that’s the best answer I can give you right now bamboo. Thank you for the question And like I said, I’m taking it very seriously Okay, we’ll move on to the next question. Next question is from the wonderful Rob Gray who Is a great patron good friend Rob ran an event recently. We did an extended philosophical fellowship It was fantastic Rob is Rob is I Think more people need to pay attention to what Rob is doing Rob very much right is an exemplary case of somebody who’s Investing themselves in these communities of practice these ecologies of practices And is also providing emergent leadership reflection and tremendous authenticity and just really you know decency and Which is an under Appreciated virtue today, so I want to just thank again Rob. It’s always I will always thank you Rob you continue to Be a very important Person in this little corner of the internet as Sevilla King says Hi, John. I was wondering if you have any new insights on the imaginal how it functions in our lives individually and collectively Are there some exemplars alive or in history who use it? Well, really can practices such as philosophical fellowship or Alexio Davina help us develop Refined harmony with this part of our larger self if so any text spring to mind I know you’ve been putting effort into this and would love to hear any discoveries or interesting places to explore things Yes, Rob. I’m doing a lot of work on this there because there has been Just It’s funny sometimes how the world seems to be waiting for you in some ways So there’s been a whole stream of work around Often collaborations between philosophers and anthropologists about what is called ritual knowledge It was started by a philosopher Jennings, but there have been important anthropological contributions. I just read an amazing article by Shilbrek Showback or show back called ritual metaphysics And the idea and what’s astonishing is Especially in Jennings because he was writing in the 80s But of course now it’s so he there’s foresight on his part and then there’s sort of hindsight and insight around more current stuff about the deep connections before before he cog sigh and especially the idea that there are not there are non propositional kinds of knowing and the idea of Bringing ritual back as Bringing ritual back as Sorry bringing an understanding back of ritual as Non-propositional knowing That is Not about sort of neurotic Repetitive behavior, but is instead about Adaptive Creative behavior That gives us an understanding of people’s fundamental orientation and The and what that is orientation discloses about Reality And What I find particularly powerful about this there’s many lines Rob. I’m gonna go on and on about this I’m gonna be teaching about this in September I’m really trying to bring together Relevance realization rationality and ritual into a unified course But one of the things is the argument and it’s um It makes clear an argument that I’ve been fumbling Fumbling as I’ve been trying to articulate and not doing a very good job at trying but it makes clear Much clearer case especially Jennings argument well also Shilbrough Which is a non reductive account of ritual so what are the reductive account of rituals the reductive account of rituals is that rituals are Demonstrations or dramatizations of Myth of narrative or of Narrative or of You know a particular Theory if you want to use that word very broadly, but This is the idea that myth that the narrative mode is fundamental and that ritual is just a way of demonstrating this more basic mode or Demonstrating it or dramatizing it And what it what the argument is being made is no no ritual is not reductive and in fact I think it was it’s Jennings it says there’s no good argument for that position what there is and This is his way of putting it and I believe it’s legitimate. He said there’s kind of a Protestant assumption That is has been built into this The Protestant assumption is the priority of word over sacrament Which is one of the hallmark differences between the Protestant Between the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic tradition Word over sacrament and again now a lot of Protestants are gonna say and write in and say blah blah blah blah I get it But the point is whether or not this is a totally accurate Portrayal of the founding thoughts of the founding fathers of Protestantism is not the argument I need to make here all I need to make I packed all its Jennings argument not mine is the argument that since this has become a Prevalent view and for me that converges perfectly with propositional tyranny and right and then the idea that of course ritual has got to be about something ultimately propositional and Right because it’s not about Science its propositional so it’s gonna be myth or story or narrative But what the arguments the arguments being made by all of these people are no no Like there’s no good argument for the reduction and there are plenty arguments against that reduction So what I’ve been particularly impressed with is this Actually, I’m impressed by a lot about it about this this deepening of the sense of the imaginal It’s understanding that its proper place is within ritual and that the imaginal and and the and the ritual knowing that it affords and I don’t think the ritual knowing is a New kind of knowing that’s not what these people are arguing. They’re arguing. It’s basically A particular coordination of procedural Perspectival and participatory knowing but that this is not reductive to myth the imaginal Is not reductive to the narrative. It’s not reducible to It is in fact both Jennings and Schellingbeck’s it’s too generous And that is a much better way of trying to articulate what I have been trying to articulate with my questioning of the absolutizing Narrative that I hear happening a lot And so I’m going to develop that argument a lot more I’m gonna Hopefully help to enhance its connection this with for e cogs I with the four kinds of knowing And also with all the work I’ve done on the imaginal especially the talk The invited lecture I gave at Cambridge the work. I’ve been doing with Dan Chiappi, but the Rovers on Mars So this is a very exciting. I’m reading so much of it. There’s an excellent anthology called thinking through ritual, which is just a beautiful Anthology the Schiller’s Is the editor of it got two essays in there about this idea now of the non reductive cognitive function of ritual I want to be clear about one other thing because I don’t want to get sort of dinged by Certain people There’s no claim here being made that this is all that ritual is Repeatedly people say no no These theorists say no ritual is all is also it’s got socioeconomic functions. It’s got social functions It it it’s got communicative functions, etc I’m not dismissing that But what people like Jenning and other people have saying in which it was which is now being considered sort of a Renaissance of work on ritual is That anthropology has tended to prioritize the non-cognitive aspects Although I read a recent paper doing a meta analysis I think Chris Kavanaugh was one of the people in there and that they do they do Acknowledge a significant cognitive dimension in quite a bit of the work But when you look at it in more detail, it’s not a cognitive dimension that is Well connected to sort of the best cognitive science other than this work that I’m mentioning And they also have the problem with these factor analysis Is there only as good as the the way the data is coded? And what we’re actually talking about is the fact that the cognitive dimension is now The cognitive dimension of ritual especially its imaginal aspects is now coming into prominence And into priority, um, and I think that’s that’s a very good thing So i’m going to be saying a lot about this in the future. I do think that philosophical fellowship lexio divina Are very important. I i’m always also Working within them and tinkering with them you just saw that recently in the most recent philosophical Fellowship, um and also looking at Period in the past When people tried to put together ecologies of practice, especially in late antiquity and the and the creation of the theurgia Tradition which was heavily around This reprioritization of the non-reductive imaginal cognition And the theurgic tradition This reprioritization of the non-reductive imaginal cognition within ritual so Sorry, you opened up a a can of writhing worms Robert, uh, but that is very much What i’m i’m devoting a lot of my time to right now and what I most want to do is try to understand How to bring that imaginative ritual? into You know Complete contemplative practices like idetic induction and and how do they properly? Integrate and towards that end Um Doing a lot of writing taking something. I’ve already written with chris and With mray lk And Trying to integrate This the ritual the imaginal the idetic induction with all the Work that i’ve already written about Dialectic into dialogo. So we’re working on a book a book about the size of the zombie book and we’re hoping to have that done By the fall so thank you for that excellent question rob, um, I I I hope you will enjoy Uh the work that’s coming up so we’re going to move on to the next question from Another person that is very important to me and I believe i’ll just address something here rachel I believe that we we’re sort of in limbo about Rescheduling another video i’d like and I know madeline’s listening. I’d like to give priority to Getting a date picked for you and I to talk again and nail down this specific topic It’s just reaching out to say that it’s important to me As you know, mandel and I have been playing catch-up. Um, she’s been sick. I’ve been sick Then she had a lot of end of year work within her graduate program and I got hammered by a bunch of family thing. It was Things are stable now, but we were both overwhelmed. We’re catching up. So I just wanted to say that I want to make that a priority So rachel says warm greetings. I’ve just returned from a conference for first episode psychosis providers Oh Wow I just want to absorb that I didn’t know there was such specific individuals I Wow what that must take Presence of mind flexibility Empathy wow I provide community peer support as someone with personal experience one speaker was eleanor longden whose own intense personal journey Let her to become a researcher in the field She’s been working on a model of psychosis as the psyches effort to create coherence in the face of traumatic events So this lines up with the work of kapoor and uh os and others about Especially about the psychosis Especially about the psychosis within schizophrenia and it also lines up with The work that people are proposing of a continuum between autism and psychosis and uh I have a paper in revision that I wrote with brett anderson that brett anderson mark miller and I wrote together about integrating relevance realization and predictive processing in order to give a more thorough and integrated account of The autism to psychosis spectrum so you may that hopefully will be coming out soon Um, and you may find that helpful Kapoor and os talk about the fact that and you and any of you will Well, we’ll Appreciate this. I hope it’s these are some of the first people that got the idea of salience dysregulation from the salience is Landscape is disrupted And then what happens kapoor and os they independently say is you get the insight that makes sense of the aberrant salience landscaping And one of this one of the things this makes clear in terms of therapy and intervention is it’s not enough just to down regulate uh things like dopamine to flatten more flatten make less spiky the salience landscape because you You have the independent cognitive structure the world view That is attuned to and is making sense of the aberrant salience landscaping. So that needs a separate kind of therapeutical intervention Okay, so let’s Let’s go back. I’m just elaborating on Everything you’re saying here. She’s been working on a model of psychosis as the psyche’s effort to create coherence in the face of traumatic events This would seem to dovetail quite well with the dialectical model of self you unfolded in the elusive eye Yes, I agree very much. Do you have any pointers towards weaving these two together theoretically under practically? Well, I just gave you I guess I did it. I I I was too impatient I’ve already mentioned it. Like I said, there’s the excellent work of kapoor and os these are separate papers on the idea of The insight The attempt to make sense of the aberrant salience landscaping and that this needs a separate intervention Uh from just a biochemical regulation of the salience landscaping often by altering dopamine and or serotonin processing And so that yeah, that’s very much properly dialectical understanding Um I know that there’s a specific Dialogical or at least dialectical I should say therapy that i’ve been reading about here and there But it seems to be gaining traction, which is avatar therapy um Now it’s particularly good uh for psychotic episodes that involve sort of Seeing or hearing voices Um intrusive entities um not so much for sort of just Aberrant salience landscaping in general, uh, but what happens in avatar therapy is the therapist um will help The person wrestling with psychosis to create an avatar for the voice um and then The person is allowed to dialogue kind of like an empty chair technique except the therapist will speak uh on behalf of The avatar and what the therapist does is gently start to evolve the avatar from being an aggressive intrusive presence to being a cooperative dialogical presence and what seems to happen is the person experiencing, uh the intrusive presence in the voice Is able then to also is is able to enter into um a more properly and healthy dialogical relationship and that’s Uh, and and that’s how the amelioration occurs which brings out a point that chris christian master Pietro and i’ve been talking about about how the horizontal Aspects of dialectic right? Can be coordinated with the vertical and we have previously talked about the vertical sort of above the person but we We are now working on including the the dialectical sort of subpersonal And so somehow That this therapy well not somehow it it sort of makes sense of how it works what it does is it Taps both of those and then properly coordinates them and then therapeutically shifts them It’s right brings about a reciprocal opening within the dialogue with um uh the initially threatening presence And then there’s a mutual shaping and a mutual accommodation reciprocal opening And there’s treatment you can imagine how especially what I was just saying to robert like This is a clear instance of the imaginal as opposed to the imaginary And and its efficaciousness and how this looks so much like ritual uh, uh right uh That you’d see in other contexts So there’s a lot going on. Um So one thing to look look for is the paper that’s going to be published. Well, i’m predicting it’s going to be published given The the really positive reviews we got the revisions are done. At least I think they’re they’re done Um, I would take a look at the older work of kapoor k a p u r Os os and then take a look for avatar therapy avatar therapy Um, like I say, i’m particularly interested. I’ve been gathering little bits little a paper published here a paper published there I don’t think it’s it’s sort of become A self-sustaining research program, but it feels like it’s going to any moment um, especially with the advent of sort of um Uh, like touring test uh level Uh ai for for a conversation I think we’re on the cusp of these imaginal avatar therapies coming into prominence So rachel, I hope you uh enjoyed the answer to that question really provocative question and we’re moving into we’re moving into Uh a domain right where the line between the all these clear lines that we used to have Are blurring and we can either drown in that or we can learn to appreciate it um and and and Find our way in it by Cultivating the new skills and virtues states of mind traits of character that are needed for it So Next question from brian revera. Hi brian How do nervous systems come to know the truth from a cognitive science or cognitive neuroscience perspective? really amazingly difficult question Um, so i’ll say first off. I don’t know if I can give an adequate answer. I will give the best answer I think I could give which Might if I don’t I don’t think it’s too arrogant to say it’s probably close to the best answer that anybody right now could give Coming from a cognitive science or cognitive neuroscience perspective um Philosophy has its own approach to define what is true i’m reading more brian But this approach seems different from how biological nervous system with the predictive engines and limited computational capacities require truthful representation Representations of truthful models of the world. Yes i’m interested to hear What and how you think about the biological underpinning of nervous systems seeking truth? So the the problem we have and it’s not just a semantic problem it’s a conceptual and therefore theoretical philosophical problem um Is how we’re using this word truth I tend to reserve truth for what it has prototypically been Um how it is prototypically been used which is truth is a property attributed to propositions And and it’s about the way in which propositions relate to the world, but of course Philosophers have been spilling ink over this for centuries if not millennia I’m not going to try and answer that What i’ve tried to do in my work and this is inspired by marlo ponti and heidegger and plato and Just and bickenstein Just bickenstein in important ways Is to note the non-propositional Relations to reality and how they come with a normative sense of realness And so You can see however That we bend the word true in order to try and capture Non-propositional relations. This is something that jordan peterson has mentioned and other people We talk about being true to someone i’ll be true to you You’re not claiming that you’re going to turn yourself into a proposition. That is a correct representation of them. That’s how you’re saying Right when we say i’ll be true to you or we say that’s true love Right, we’re pointing to a phenomena not a proposition and yet we’re saying it’s true. We’re saying his aim was true Which is a procedural thing his skill right the way of paying attention and orienting his sensory motor faculties The word true is related to troth which is in our word betrothed and in our word trust If i’m getting the if i’m remembering the etymology correctly, and so there’s a binding sense of truth Um, and then of course as heidegger famously Pointed out the greek word for truth alatheia does not mean correctness of propositions. It means the uncovering the disclosing So I tend to talk about the way in which our skills are powerful They empower us they transfer and work I talk about how our perspectives give us presence That here nowness togetherness That we seek when we want our video games to be realistic Or we want to feel that somebody is present in a relationship and we use spatial metaphors to try and convey that And then the participatory knowing is not power it’s not truth It’s not power It’s not even presence it’s a sense of fundamental belonging It’s the it’s the the the connect that basic sense of connectedness that reality and Or the environment in you if you want to speak less pretentiously Are mutually shaping each other and being mutually shaped So I’m not only shaping the environment and shaping me both me and this environment that i’m in are being shaped together by gravity and by time and energy and matter Right and so there’s a way in which Everything fits together and affords a sense of power And then the ordinances for interaction are created and it’s it’s a meta meaningful system It’s the connectedness between the agent and arena that makes all the other ways of knowing possible I think We when we point to an understanding And not just an assertion My god i’m so aren’t you i’m so tired of people asserting I suppose that was an assertion But i’m tired of Asserting in that has been untethered from understanding. I mean, this is socrates’s greatest The way his greatest provocation is to provoke people to realize the disproportion between their Effort of assertion and identity with their assertion and the amount of effort and identification that has gone into understanding Because for me The understanding that is well, i’ll make a proposal here the understanding That is so constitutive of wisdom is The mutual alignment and affording between all these kinds of knowing somebody deeply understands If he has the correct beliefs The appropriate skills To Understand The way to presence Herself or himself to something so that it is present appropriately to him or her or them And is Also conforming deeply, I mean I don’t want to just have correct beliefs about her I don’t know. I don’t know just want to have skills that are really appropriate to her I don’t want to just have states of mind that make me present to her and so she can feel present to me And so I don’t want to just have a I don’t want to just have a I don’t want to just have states of mind that make me present to her and so she can feel present to me So that I can indwell her and she can indwell me We want we want to be we want I don’t want to just be mutually fitted so we’re Reciprocally opening each other up mutual shaping and mutually being shaped. I want all of those to align And and afford and grow each other I mean because And think about that I want all of them to align and afford each other almost like an ecology of practices, right so that the relevance realization within each kind of knowing and the relevance realization between each kind of knowing and the relevance realization that can emerge from their proper integration differentiation Differentiation differentiation complexification like I want to understand her I want to understand my sons. I want to understand my friends like that That means there’s a lot of truth Round up in how i’m a non-propositional being that can be understood in terms of relevant recursive relevance realization and predictive processing right The dynamics of self-organization dynamical coupling all of the stuff that for ecogsci is talking about all of that can be understood In terms Of The Nervous system of the embedded embodied inactive extended mind All right, thank you brian that was an excellent question We’ll now be switching to answering questions from the live chat I want to thank you all to those of you who have already submitted the questions that we’ve gone over Excellent, so this is from marcel gavriel How do we reconcile the no thingness and the forms Ah So for me, uh, the no thingness Is and I think I don’t think nishatani would object to this Maybe um, but I think I could at least have wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could Have a decent dialogue with the people who are interested in this Maybe um, but I think I could at least have wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could Have a decent dialogue with him about it For me the no thingness has the same role as the good for play dough Now the good is often explained as sort of the the form of the forms, but that’s kind of a Like it verges on being a category mistake um One way you can know this for certain is play to identify as the forms with true being and the good is somehow beyond being And the neo-platinist, uh were right to really Accentuate that for me The good is the primary promise Where which is sort of the fundamental framing and in that sense the faith Within platonism this came up in the discussion. I recently posted with The wonderful clara carlyle and her amazing book spinoza’s religion, but for me the good is The promise That the depth the deep structure of intelligibility Will disclose to us the deep structure of reality that intelligibility Is is wedded to reality so the relevance realization And reality Realization are always wedded and co-creating the intelligibility the so The intelligibility is inexhaustibly capable of disclosing the inexhaustibleness of reality So That is not something that you can give an argument for Or All arguments presuppose the connection between intelligibility And realness that connection is not itself a form It is a no thingness that makes all form all patterns of intelligibility a form is when The primal patterns of reality realization and the primal patterns of intelligibility are integrated But that which makes the integration ongoingly the case Is the good it is not any kind of thing. It is that which makes the forms possible As forms. I hope that answers your question marcel Um, the next is from uh, uh fanny, uh grand If even the desire for the victory of good over It is even the desire for the victory of good over evil part of uh philonachia the love of victory Now this is a very tricky question and I don’t mean the person’s being tricky in the trickster sense I mean, this is a question that requires a bit of subtlety to um address Because if you are desiring the victory of good over evil There’s a sense in which And I want to tread very carefully. I’m not I really i’m asking for charity on your part fanny. I’m not trying to be insulting Right Because i’ve been the thing is i’ve been really i’ve been wrestling with i’ve been doing lexio divina on a passage In dianesis where he’s trying to wrestle Uh with the how could there be evil and he keeps producing these arguments that evil shouldn’t exist Um, and then he keeps realizing that that’s and it’s like it’s very and it’s very powerful to watch um I think Well, first of all, no I I would I would wonder about anybody who would pronounce on this in any kind of definitive fashion So I want to make a suggestive proposal to you A suggestion for reflection The proposal which I think you see emerging in dianesis, but it comes out In whitehead, uh that evil is ultimately self-destruction. It is self-destructive Self-destructive it’s self-destruction. It is an it it that’s what it is. It is self-destructiveness um and that what The great thing we can rely on Is that because evil is the self is self-destructiveness. It is always dependent on The good not the moral good the moral good can fail the aesthetic good can fail Right even the epistemic good can fail but the good I was just talking about the ontological good that can’t fail um So It’s not so much that good will be victorious over evil it’s that We have to maintain we have to Maintain our faithfulness to the good So that we are not drawn into the self-destructive vortex of what is evil And then when you put it that way it’s not phyllo phyllo nikea it’s phyllo sophia through and through Can I remain faithful to the good so that I am not drawn into? Not contributing to the self-destructive vortex of evil So, thank you very much fanny I want to now pass on to james morris question What are the main historical anthropological factors that differentiated the west from africa? What was the triggering event that unleashed all this technological power? And nihilistic madness that I don’t know if there’s a signal signal thing um Now ferguson did a documentary video documentary series a while ago sort of the killer apps of the west The killer apps of the west And then of course, there’s jared diamonds gunsterms and steel in which there are, you know, there are geographical Explanations um there are you know, there’s Ecological explanations in terms of particular kind of environment and climate And of course there are historical factors which ferguson brought out Certain things that um led to uh the existence of Science and technology as we currently understand them And I and I try to trace out those historical factors in awakening from the meaning crisis Um, I think those historical fact one of the great um sort of lacuna in Uh awakening from the meaning crisis it’s just because I’m limited I was limited and right as I was largely tracing out the historical factors and then the the the historical factors of The meaning crisis and then the structural factor factors of meaning making and integrating them together but that historical argument should go with a With a you know with a geographical ecological Sorry Oh, I i’m sorry. I read charles pratt’s question I i i i’m sorry james. I made a mistake. Sorry. This is charles question, but i’m going to continue to answer. Um So I think yeah, that’s what um That’s the kind of answer you’d have to give as to Uh, I do think you know jared diamond has important points in gunner germs and steel I do think I made important points about a certain historical development I I uh And I think and then there’s ways in which they interacted which I have a clear understanding of but I think Um, it’d be good work for people to do um Yeah, I mean we have to give I mean obviously we need a better account of this Count that was derived in the 18th and the 19th century Um, the sort of european supremacist the ethnometric colonial imperial account or or or we have christianity and the rest of the world doesn’t account Um, I think I think those are simplistic. I think christianity played a role um, but I think the uh the Deposition the natural deposition of coal deposits also made a role. I think the prevalence of parasitic disease also played a role um um, I think the greek Uh played a role, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So, uh charles that’s the kind of answer Um, I would give so now I I will answer James’s question What do you think of henry corbett’s ideas of the three realms of the sensible the imaginable the intelligible the imaginal being the link between the two others I agree with that Um, if you watch the episode from awakening for the meeting crisis where I talked about that Um, I think of the I think then brought out what you might call the ontological Uh dimension Of it, but he sometimes talks both from the cog side and from the ontological side I think corban should be understood Transjectively and I think that’s just my particular hobby horse. I think that’s a I think you make a very good exegetical argument for this, but I do think the imaginal is that which bridges Between the the sensible and the intelligible insofar as the sensible and the intelligible are also Transjectively bound up with the with realizing relevant reality I think the imaginal um also properly Integrates not only The intelligible and the sensible which you can think of on a vertical dimension Which corbin makes explicit I think it also integrates and this comes out uh from some interpreters of Uh of corban like in hillman. It also integrates the conscious and the unconscious It and and the subjective and the objective Um, I tried to argue that the imaginal properly integrates across all three of those Dimensions the first is explicit In corban, I think the second is Implicit but only slightly so because of his deep uh dialogue with young the third one I think is there insofar as he’s trying to get at a platonic framework as opposed to a cartesian framework So I think of the imaginal as bridging between all three of those Um in a powerful way. So thank you very much for that. Excellent question james Thank you everyone for joining me for this excellent q a Q&A Normally, we do this every third sunday of the month at 3 pm eastern time as I said Um, we shifted it this month because next sunday is friday is father’s day and i’m a father and so There you go Our next q a will be one hour and 15 minutes and we will not be having a live chat question submission So just for the next time we’ll be adding an extra 15 minutes. We’ll not be having a live chat This is because we receive many so many interesting submitted questions and we want to be able to address more of those questions So we’re just we’re going to give a little bit more priority next time. This won’t be an ongoing thing Well, we’ll add 15 minutes in we will only deal with submitted questions just to get a little bit of the backlog Addressed And then we’ll go back to our normal format This video will be available publicly on youtube Uh very soon, uh, thank you for your support I want to thank especially the work of uh, madeline Uh my wonderful ea and partner, uh in uh the writing uh The book we’re doing on awakening from the meeting crisis turning the book into a series Madeline was behind the scenes Um managing things and prodding me as when I was talking too long about a particular question or when I missed made the mistake Of uh answering charles question when I thought was answering james question So I wanted to as always thank her for her excellent help I’ll see you all next month. Thank you for your time and attention. I really do mean that by the way Take good care everyone