https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=btfVAbtLyhg
Welcome everyone to our monthly Patreon Q&A. Thank you for your flexibility about moving the time. You’re helping science. Madeleine needed to move the time because she’s doing some important lab work for her PhD. So it’s very much appreciated. She does so much for me. I want to be very flexible and accommodating for her. So we’re going to take the questions. We’ll do some questions first that have already been submitted. And if there’s time, we’ll take some questions from the chat. So our first question is from Gabriel Garcia. Thank you so much for your support, Gabriel. Here’s the question. Hello. Thank you very much for your work. You’re welcome. I know I say this and I’m going to keep saying this. And it’s always going to be sincere. I appreciate the encouragement. I appreciate the support. It helps a lot in ways that people might not realize. And so I just want to just say thank you for all of the support and even the expression of gratitude. It’s helpful. So thank you very much, Gabriel. I’ll continue. You already talked about it briefly and after Socrates, but can you share a little bit more about your morning routines? Do you have a fixed time to wake up? Do you practice before or after breakfast? Which practices do you do? And are they the same every day? Or do you vary them? How much time of practices every morning? Then I’ll respond to the questions, but there’s a final comment. Every person has a different situation. So I do not mean to try to copy someone’s routine in every detail, but I think it could be useful as a reference point since I’m also testing out some morning routines. Yes, Gabriel, I’ll answer that. So I have two routines. I do. One is my normal routine, and then I have a shorter version that only takes about 45 minutes. If I suddenly get slammed with a bunch of stuff I have to do and start my day very early or etc. So I don’t get up at the same time because sometimes when I’m at my partner’s place, I get up earlier with her. When I’m at my place with my son, I get up later so he can have the space to himself to get ready for work. So there’s some variation according to other people’s schedules. I typically get up. I have breakfast, a light breakfast, and then take care of some initial things that I set aside time, usually an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half for the longer routine. And like I say, about 45 minutes, sometimes 40 minutes for the shorter routine. I want to emphasize that I can do sort of more compressed versions of the practice because each practice has been practiced for years and therefore I can do less of this practice because I can get into it more deeply. So I wouldn’t take the time I do and the time I devote to be totally exemplary. Everybody should be varying how many practices they’re doing and how much time they’re putting into the practice according to where they are developmentally. So as long as everybody takes that in hand, I’ll then answer your question. So I typically get up and I do some basic stretching exercises, loosening up exercises. Then I do Fijian, which is a fast striking version of Tai Chi Chuan. Then I do a sword form of Tai Chi Chuan. Then I do a mixture of Jian Zheng. Jian Zheng is when you’re standing and holding a posture like I’m standing and my knees are bent and I’m holding this posture. So and what you’re trying to do is relax as much as you can and build up a sense of internal oneness that’s holding you up rather than sort of external strength. And then there’s each one. Each one are some slow moving practices that overlap a little bit with Tai Chi Chuan. And then I do some of the exercises you’ve seen in After Socrates. I do opening and closing. I do the reciprocal opening exercise. I do what’s called a Qigong called bringing down the heavens. Then I’ll do some Tai Chi Chuan, the slow form. Usually I do half of the form one day and the other half the other day. So there’s a bit of novelty to the form. Then I end with some some standing postures again and then a closing thing called bringing down the heavens. Then I sit down and I do the Socratic humbling wonder practices to open me up. And I do some final Siddha Qigong practices. They’re hard to describe because they’re done mostly internally, the body. I do a bit of Reiki and then I go into a deep meditative practice. And then I take that into the Neoplatonic contemplative practice that many are familiar with. And then I come out of that doing the coming out exercise, integrating what I cultivated in my practice with my everyday consciousness, cognition, character and communitas. Then I do Lexio Divina. I typically read from Platinus right now and then somebody else like Dionysus, Nicholas of Cusa, Maximus. And so I do the Lexio within and then the Lexio between. And then I do a practice responsive poiesis. I haven’t talked too much about that right now because I’m still practicing a lot. Basically, I have a book of Sufi poetry because for me, the Sufi poets are the best for capturing the liturgical and Lexio Divina and poetic aspects of Neoplatonism. And so I’ll read that text in a very Lexio fashion and then I will try to pick up. The poiesis, the poiesis and write a poem in response, but not just in response, but more in dialogue. What better in dialogos, what has been evoked and provoked and invoked in me. The author is being invoked and that’s provoking and I write a poem in response, not for anybody else, just in response. And then I’ll do the internal dialogue practice. And then I end by reading a quote. It varies every day from Socrates. And then I end with the famous Socratic prayer. It goes something like, you know, Ope and all gods to haunt this place. Please give me the beauty within and let the inner man and the outer man be in harmony. It’s something to that effect. I read that and then I commit to the four promises that I’m going to try and live throughout the day. I sorry, the five precepts. And then I begin my day. And of course, I try when I can to meet with people and do philosophical fellowship and do dialectic and do the logos. I also consider a part of a proper part of my practice to teach philosophical fellowship, to teach dialectic into the logos, to teach in the workshops, etc. I try to make it and trying to make it a part of my practice to read philosophy, especially what I would call phyllo Sophia, philosophy for the cultivation of wisdom, independent from all the philosophical texts I read for my work. But that’s proving to be a little bit challenging because they bleed into each other so much. But that’s those are the practices I try to do every day. Oh, I do a remembrance practice. I carry around a tiger eye stone or sometimes a pure black stone, which for me represents Zen as sort of the great integration of Taoism and Buddhism. And I carry around a frog, which is Neoplatonism. And then I try to commit myself to these practices and these frameworks throughout the day. So thank you, Gabriel, very much for your question. I hope that wasn’t pedantic or a burden in any way. So and again, please, everybody, remember what I said. Don’t leap into that. That’s because I’ve been doing all of these practices a lot and then working with others and teaching them. And then so I can do them in a much more. I don’t know what I don’t want to compress, doesn’t quite the right word, sort of get to the through line a lot faster. And you will, too, with time. You will, too, definitely with time. So thank you very much. We’ll now move on to question from Martin. And I want to thank Martin very much for his support. What change for you after going through the dialectic into dialogous practice with some of your most trusted friends to be later shared with the entire world? And what would you recommend we take away from this perception change you had? I’ll answer the question, but there’s a comment or also I’m finding it a bit difficult to think that the dialogous spark can be kindled at all with people outside one’s most trustworthy group or groups that we know about the practice that know about the practice and follow it. And I’m wondering if you recommend anything we should try to do like a specific posture, mental or physical, to help the no dialogous to ignite in most situations. Yes. So let’s do the answer the question and then give the requested recommendation. To be shared with the entire world, it’s an odd thing. Some of it’s idiosyncratic and has to do with my temperamental deficiencies and defects. Which has to do with an enhancement of that sense of sort of raw exposure. And. And a sense of exposing my friends. I mean, that sounds a little bit domineering. They’re not my possessions or or anything like that. But I get I hope it’s a sense of concern for them. Also, gratitude that they were willing to follow me on this journey. A sense of. How it needs to and I think you’re you’re foreshadowing this, Martin, a sense of how it needs to be really properly formatted, dialectic and dialogous should not be practiced independently of a shared ecology of practices, nor should it be practiced unless one has gone through the pedagogical program that we demonstrated in episodes 10 and B and that we do the weekend workshops on. And so. It also when we did the dialectic into this will come later, sorry, this will be episode 24. Chris and Guy and Taylor come back and we do dialectic into dialogous about the virtue of dialectic itself. And that. That sort of Hegelian moment deepened my. My perception and appreciation of dialogous in a very, very, very, very powerful way. So I’m going through this thing where there’s a growth arc. I’m seeing it through other people’s eyes. I’m seeing it also on behalf of my friends who partook of it with me and went public with it. I’m appreciating a lot of the feedback comments we’re getting. I do now to move on to the recommendation. I do not think you can just do this with people unless they have done the pedagogical program that’s shown in 10 A and 10 B. And they are doing some ecology of practices that at least overlaps with yours. They have some mindfulness practice. They have some movement practice, etc. And I think really doing the the past meditation and the the neoplatonic contemplation and then just the base, perhaps like the basic noticing and paraphrasing practices is really, really important before you to get you in sort of the right stance to enter into. Dialectic into dialogous now, like everything else. And I said this in last question, the more you practice this, especially with other people that you come into a trustworthy relationship with, the more you’ll be able to just go into dialectic into the logos. And then eventually you won’t even need the dialectic. You’ll be able to just find, find, feel, trace, track your way to that place where you are most respective to the spark catching. Now, final overall caveat, please understand, Martin, that for all of us, this is still very much a work in progress. And you’ll see more, like I say, in episode 24. Chris and I are writing a book, dialectic into the logos, but it’s slated to come out. So awakening from the meeting crisis, part A comes out this year and then part two will probably be. The following year and then probably after Socrates will be turned into a book next and then dialectic into the logos. So we have a set of four books planned and I’m hoping by the time we get to the book, we’ve got a little bit better articulation of the theory and engineering of the practice. I hope this helps Martin. It was a little bit one of the things that I wanted to talk about in this book. I was trying very hard to give you sort of the cutting edge of what’s happening for me. So thank you very much for your question. The next is from Jalad or glad. Thank you very much for your support. Hi, John. Thank you again. Thanks again for all your work. Thank you for thanking me again. Always appreciated. I’ve been watching after Socrates slowly, not yet caught up. And I’m finally getting to the point where I’m not yet caught up. I’m finding it very interesting and useful. Thank you for saying that. Like we release every week that but go through after Socrates at your pace like especially if you’re discussing it with other people, taking up the practices. That’s totally how you should be doing it. And I’ll continue with what glad has to say. I’ve been rewatching Awakening from the meaning crisis as well and want to ask about an insight had regarding Socrates rejection of truth, without relevance. Oh, cool. What occurred to me is colon that truth that isn’t made relevant enough to others cannot be tested as thoroughly and is less less likely to be true. Oh, that’s very good. That’s very good. You’re making any. And this is not to take any credit away from you. I have made connections not there. But when I teach about this at U of T, I have made connections. I do make connections about evidence for truth and relevance and how evidence ultimately depends on relevance. This is based on a paper that my good friend and I, Dan Schiappi, published in 1997 about just that relationship amongst other things. So I think that’s I think that’s an excellent insight. In other words, I think that’s an excellent insight. I think this is right. I think this is deeply right. I actually and this is part of the argument of the whole argument of after Socrates. Again, not to take any credit away from you. I think this is right. I think this is deeply right. I actually and this is part of the argument of the whole argument of after Socrates. Again, not to take any credit away from you. I think this is right. I think this is deeply right. And not to take any credit away from you. Your insight is pertinent and astute. But I happen to think that ultimately rationality and I make this argument and I made it also in my talk at Ralston and otherwares and other places. I think rationality is ultimately dialogical in exactly the way you’re talking about. And I think this is the great difference between Plato’s dialogues and Aristotelian treaties now in fairness to Aristotle. That’s probably not due to him He wrote a lot of dialogues, but they were lost and what we have are basically lecture notes But that shift nevertheless was very impactful Is this convergent with your view on the matter or do you think I’m missing something? I think you could tell from my response that I think you’re bang on. I think it’s very convergent and We need to do more work about knowledge and evidence and understanding and relevance so here’s knowledge and evidence and here’s Understanding and relevance and then there’s some interpenetrating relationship between evidence and relevance just like there is between knowledge and understanding and that needs To be better worked out and so if I had dr. Who’s Tardis and I could go in there for 10 15 years and come out in no time of past. I would definitely like to do this I Have I have a wonderful problem Because of all of these like like what’s were happening right now all the people I get to interact with and all the insights There’s so many things that arguments. I want to pursue theoretical bridges. I want to build synoptic integration. I want to afford That it’s That it’s It’s it’s like it’s amazing like going in your amaze So I want to thank you for this. I think this is really really good again. This is glad Thank you for all your work and for these Q&A specifically. You’re very very welcome and thank you for your support I now want to move to question from chance or it might be chonce. I don’t know I’ve heard different pronunciations for This writing so if I get your name the pronunciation wrong, please please forgive me it reminds me of Being there the Peter Sellers movie Excellent movie by the way Excellent movie. I recommend it book is really well written too. Unfortunately the author was overtaken by the by the very problem of the meaning crisis that he was confronting and Committed suicide there were some things happening with his health I believe too so Just if you get a chance read the book or see the movie now back to Chance’s question. I find that I tend to not believe as deeply as I experienced believing as a child. Yes, so this is a This is a perennial theme In literature, you’ll even find this in literature from the Bronze Age You’ll also find the reverse of it Saint Paul’s great him to a gapay when I was a child I thought and spoke as a child, but when I became a man I put those childish ways behind me as a way of trying to explain the change that occurs When you get the soft person that comes from a gapay So this is a perennial theme What would be a good way to distinguish jadedness and or incredulity From epistemic humility when it comes to non propositional belief Is the level of postulate sufficient or does the movement towards conviction need to be pursued? I would need a little bit more on the last question, but I’ll try and answer The first question And maybe that will help give me some further insight into the second question So part of it is You have to develop a very powerful internal perspectival knowing And I think Siegel is right mindfulness mindfulness within is just internalization Mind sightedness without my kids can pick up on other people’s mental states way before they can introspect their own And then we internalize that and we do that in an imaginal way Before they can introspect their own and then we internalize that and we do that in an imaginal fashion There is no little space. There is literally no space in your head. That is an imaginal space through and through It’s just so familiar to us all that we forget that In that imaginal space What’s the taste in your mind of your disbelief? What’s the tempo? What’s the texture? Does it mean feel mere mean-spirited does it feel reactive and fast? Does it feel very sort of brittle? Does it feel very resistant? Do you ever when you try and pick up on the emotional tone is it very diffident? defensive Is there a sense of not learning and Being resistant to being deceived And this is very hard to keep and so you have to develop like a connoisseur Discernment of this and I’m not claiming to be a sage I’m claiming that with the decades of practice and all the learning and reading I’ve done I have glimpses of this and then I see it reflected in people Like Socrates and the Buddha when they’re in when they’re interacting with their interlocutors, right? But you can develop that connoisseur Discernment that look like you connoisseur you have the very you know the very Refined ability to taste these differences within your internal state and for me That is the way I distinguish from a kind of A kind of jadedness Hard-heartedness mean-spirited Defensive nihilism right I can’t figure it out. So I’m not gonna let ever anybody else figure it out I got a negative answer. So I’m gonna make sure that everybody else comes to a negative answer So you can really pick up on the tenor And try to use that as like a summation of all the other teas the taste the tempo the texture Timing right try to pick up on all of those Whereas when you have epistemic humility There is a genuine feeling of wonder There’s a sense of I’m learning now There’s a sense of I’m being corrected, but that’s helping more than hurting There’s a sense of Gratitude and novelty for what the other might have provided to you So the the other The way it comes down. I would say is when you’re jaded You’re trying to You’re trying to like harden your heart against self-deception Whereas in epistemic humility you’re trying to open your heart in response to epistemic humility and the possibility of self-deception And you find that the second will get you into more of a flowing and potentially even a flow state with the world Whereas the first prevents that flow From ever happening, I hope this was helpful and Yeah, I think it went towards your second point about conviction, but I’m really trying to open up really open up the phenomenology of the sense of conviction and Really get you to become a connoisseur of its complexity so that your discernment becomes like Multi-constrained and therefore much more likely To open you to to the truth So thank you. We’ll now move on to boom-boom Thank you very much for your support Hi, John in the deepening of a pasta meditates unless and you mentioned that the goal is to meditate on the silence between the thoughts by Applying the five factors of inquiring mindfulness. Yes the Inquiring mindfulness yes the Vincolence sensitivity acuity noticing and reminding yes Does it mean that one should apply each factor in sequence? I can see how to apply sensitivity and acuity But noticing is strange because my emotional and mental state seem to blank Yes, you should apply them in sequence So your emotional and mental state in response to the distraction seems to blank Can you try to treat that blankness as a Portal Instead of it being a wall is it there’s like because what’s happening is a kind of resistance Can you soften it can you soften to what’s there and let stuff Bubble up through that so you get some insight into your emotional and mental framing of the distraction so you Enter into a more like dialogical relationship to the blankness because blankness usually means That we’re getting that we’re getting a kind of indirect resistance There we’re not we we’ve we’re pulling away from the distraction but We’re pulling away into the possibility of not Really learning about our emotional and mental framing now that might be happening And that would be my advice if what you mean by blank is the distraction just disappears And that’s why there’s you can’t get a grip on your your mental or emotional Framing that goes that goes back to the overall principle just then return to your breath and start your your Deepening of a past and practice so remember always return to your breath Then go back into the deepening practice Also when I get to remind you do I start from the beginning vigilance and go in loops or do I let it go and just Observe the silence. Thank you When you get to the reminding right? You only do the reminding if right you find that you’re getting like if you find that you’re getting distracted a lot, right? Sorry, that’s exactly wrong what I mean if you’re getting Explanatory and reactive to your distraction. That’s what I meant to say. I apologize for that error so if you’re staying in the practice of Meditating Meditating on your distractions as opposed to Interacting in an argumentative explanatory fashion with the content Then you don’t need to do the reminding but if you find that you’re doing a lot of explaining Justifying theorizing that’s when you do the reminding and then like I said, first of all go back to following the breath Then go right into Deepening The Vipassana and you only do the four right if right if you can maintain So you’re distracted you step back you label it and then you do you do the vigilance? The sensitivity the acuity and the noticing and you only do the reminding if you find That you’ve lost that and you’re doing explaining in which you just let it all go You just let it all go come back to the breath and then return to the deepening practice Okay So I hope that helps boom-boo and I thank you for your support and for your excellent question now a question from Alexandra Zachary Great to hear from you Alexandra all the work. I believe I owe you a couple emails. I will try to get to them Things are Very hectic, but I really appreciate the work you’re doing Hi John, hope you’re well, I am now I was really sick for about 12 days Not last week the week before Worse than COVID it wasn’t COVID got tested but work worse than COVID but much better now I Remember reading Julian Jaynes year ago And I just wondered if you could comment his idea in the bicameral mind especially about the whole thing that the gods stopped Answering us externally and were internalized seems like dialogical thinking ideas have evolved somewhat from Jaynes’s work lots of love Thank you Yeah, Julian Jaynes the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind I have a book that’s sort of 20 years after is with bit more than 20 years. Sorry I Think it’s 2020 that’s where I’m getting the 20 from it came out about an anthology of sort of how people have been following Up on this and the fact that we have a large percentage of the population I’ve heard the estimate and it doesn’t seem Implausible at 30% of the population of people who hear voices and they are not schizophrenic They’re not mentally disordered in any way And they’re high functioning individuals There are some practices there are some times when you’re deep in IFS or ally work or Deep within meditation in which you can hear voices And so the idea of a stark change that Jaynes proposed Is questionable it seems much more malleable So just for those of you are on a way that Jaynes proposed And James I remember when I was at the ROM that’s a Royal Ontario Museum And I was working with an Egyptologist there and she came to a section where she was talking about these skulls that were being Preserved and it looks like people were sort of talking to the skulls and I brought up James’s book And she smiled and she was she was a wonderful person great to work with her And and I think I really agree with her assessment She said that’s a book with hundreds of wonderful ideas and thousands of bad ideas So James’s idea was that before something like the Bronze Age collapse Uh people did not have he makes a mistake. Here’s one of the mistakes. He confuses consciousness with even which even cats have Uh with self-consciousness that reflective self-awareness Um, he thinks the two hemispheres weren’t as integrated as much and the right hemisphere spoke To the left hemisphere and these speakings were interpreted as the voice of the gods or the ancestors And again, um and the idea was we’re mistranslating a lot a lot of the ancient texts I doubt That the people of the pre-bronze age world, um were in that state We have met of course populations and i’m not saying That hunter gatherer populations don’t are ahistorical and don’t evolve but They were clearly outside the historical causal timeline of The bronze age collapse and we meet hunter gatherer societies and they do not seem to have this kind of Bicameral mind they seem to be be reflectively self-aware They have mature metacognition um, so I I find James’s james’s proposal too strong. I think it’s implausible the idea that human beings can get into these states Um, I think that’s very Plausible and I think it’s much more pervasive than james uh realized uh and And towards your final point, uh alexandra The idea is that the socratic shift we’re opening up because socrates had his daemonium So who like where does socrates fit in james’s proposal? He’s clearly a pivotal and paradigmatic figure Of the axial age revolution in full swing and yet he’s hearing voices that are guiding him yet. He’s deeply capable Of like he’s one of the most self-aware individuals of all time and metacognitive He just he just counter examples james’s proposal to death right And I think what we’re better coming to realize is how inherently And I argued for this in the series and I come back to it a couple of times how inherently Dialogical we are through and through and so I totally agree with you. So alexandra. I hope that was a good answer to your question now, um a question from verun, um, And I’m very happy, uh to get this question verun’s last question Uh, I thought was deeply astute About you know that we need to make the Curating I think that’s the best way the curating Of the constraints on our social media the algorithms and other things a proper domain in our wisdom cultivation The way we can cultivate salience habits And rationality habits. I think I think this was just brilliant and i’m going to keep mentioning that So What does ruin have to say now? I can imagine a number of ways in that an agent might formally test whether another agent possesses specific propositional or procedural knowledge But i’m struggling to come up with ideas for formally testing participatory and perspectival knowledge or test For whether an agent even possesses its capacity to capture such knowledge. Do you have any thoughts? Yes, we already have existing tests. Um Some of them are low level but we could build on them So one of the tests we have we reliably use for perspectival knowing and we use it for little kids is the false belief test And it tests the existence of Perspectival knowing and perspective taking in this way Um, so you you bring a small child and you show them right? Um You show them two puppets right and the first puppet watches you Oh, sorry, both puppets watch you place the candy in box a Right, and then the first puppet is taken outside of the room and the door is closed and the second puppet is there And you move the candy from box a to box b and right you close it Then you bring the first puppet back and then you ask the child Where will? That first puppet say the candy is right And little kids will say b Because they know that the candy is in b that’s their perspective and they can’t differentiate their perspective from the perspective of the puppet But after a certain stage and when they start to pick up on theory of mind, I would say it’s not a theory I would say it’s perspective taking which is exactly what it is And that’s a whole other can of worms. I won’t get into right now the fact that we’ve Misunderstood a perspectival capacity as the generation of a propositional theory Oh boy, but let’s just put that aside Um seagull’s idea that we’re talking about mind sight not theory of mind. I think is really important um See we think the only perspectives are theoretical in nature Anyways to back to the thing As the child gets the capacity to take the perspective think of the imaginal capacity there To take the perspective of the first puppet the child will say The puppet will say box the first box because the that puppet doesn’t know Did not see the candy be moved from the first box to the second box So that we have tests like that right And they basically indicate a capacity For perspective taking now you may say well that only works for little kids. Ah Here’s a here’s a version of it that you can do with adults So what you can do is you can write a letter Right, um on and and then ask people to turn it around and show it to somebody else sometimes a more complex drawing And then you can ask people Describe how the person you’re talking to is seeing that And what the research show is that people go as people go higher up Dominance hierarchies like within corporations they get increasingly disabled at being able to Say say how the other person is seeing the situation. So they they they start to revert back To the rigid egocentrism Uh, all right, uh in that sense that I described of small children. So there are definitely perspectival tests so Participatory tests are we do have them but our society is in flux about them right now because Basically what we’ve had is we’ve had tests for significant identity change uh participatory knowing is knowing by identifying with and by being transformed in your Identification with yourself so that you have also incorporated how you’re identifying with the other Um, this is this All right, you’re both participating in a shared, uh, uh, co-identification co-development So We have usually tested for that by seeking tests for Whether or not somebody has gone through an identity change and There’s no way to talk about this without pissing somebody off But this is the proper thing we have to talk about we have to stop pretending that we have the ontology and the epistemology of identity all worked out like it’s just Preposterous Right and we used to think that And contrary to what the right says, right? We have always afforded people Significant identity change we let people go from being a child to an adult from going from being single to being married from going from being Secular to being a monk from going to be from unenlightened to enlightened like we have a lot we St paul talks about you know, I used to be this way and now i’m this way and in christ There is no jew or gentile male or female like we have allowed for significant Identity change that’s fundamentally what we think education should do But what we’ve done is we we have until recently thought identity is really complex and Really inherently valuable thing and therefore we need very stringent tests On how people if people have changed their identity and come into new kinds of participatory knowing And I think you see that pattern cross-cultural The idea that participating changing because participatory knowing is so primordial Changing it is so significant so profound in the sense of deep profundus Right that we have said The tests for identity change Need to be very very significant. We need to see new traits of character we need to see reconfiguration of the kinds of relationships that people have the company they I keep the practices the ecology of practices they have committed themselves to This is why once again to praise her I think rachel hayden’s model of gender transition being wrapped into an Aspirational model that carries with it all of these characterological demands is the correct model because it doesn’t deny the possibility of The transition or the transformation the change in identity, but it properly understood understands the degree to which we don’t understand identity And the need to which we and how valuable it is and therefore tests of identity should be powerful tests um, so I would recommend that you take a look at the kind of tests that are exigent in The wisdom traditions for whether or not somebody has genuinely made a change of identity So verun, I hope that was helpful to you. I hope people heard me clearly I hope people heard me clearly How I answered that very tricky question Um, and I need I I hope we can create this space and I again I will recommend again rachel hayden’s important and exemplary work on this nikola, uh sinemonoff Uh or simonov and which one I don’t know Uh, first of all, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and the changes it brought about me and many more around me Thank you nikola every time you define a wisdom practice and as one that transfers outside the practice itself I keep thinking that with the right stance even the most um mondian mundane. Oh, oh mundane. Uh, you’ve spelt it differently than The normal spelling so I I mispronounced I apologize can become a wisdom practice And on the other hand one can participate in the most profound practice and has no transfer of any wisdom into his life There’s something about care that could come from a person from the structure of the practice or from the comfort Of the repetitiveness of the ritual that lowers defenses and opens up a person to the possibility of change I’m really eager to hear your thoughts on this. I think this is exactly right. I think we have to understand and Rituals always have understood this we’ve understood that the ritual can do the kind of conducing that you’re talking about the repetition um, uh, right, uh lowering the defensive, uh, lowering lowering of defensive the the inherent structuring of it But that is insufficient what it right? Well, even the most mundane task Could be turned into a wisdom practice that transfers and of course you get stories of this Particularly from the zen tradition in which somebody’s just sweeping right? Um the courtyard of the monastery they hear a stone click on the sidewalk and they achieve enlightenment because because of that um, so I think that’s totally right because this is ultimately Transjective rituals are ultimately transjective. They are co-created Uh both by the ritual itself the structure of the the objective structure of the ritual and And its interaction but also by the attitude Uh the the basic existential stance that someone is bringing to it. So I think the answer is exactly Uh what you said, so thank you very much uh nicola All right. We are now shifting to live questions from the chat And thank you for our patreon subscribers of everyone watching right now David swedlow david great pleasure to hear from you again. I hope you’re well Leaving drama side challenging as that may be david stodin’s criticism of neoplatonism may have some validity But I think it’s too narrow and he goes too far comparing it to manikinism totally Totally, I mean, uh, you know platinus has an entire Uh, uh and yet against the gnostics entitled against the gnostics in which he makes it clear how different importantly different Um neoplatonism and he that’s just that the origin of neoplatonism is from manikinism. Um, yeah now The validity I would say that’s in Um stodin’s critique is that there are versions of neoplatonism which overemphasize the emanation at the expense of the emergence I think this is even though he is like very clearly and explicitly against the gnostics there is this tendency in Uh platinus, but you can immediately see proclus and iamblichus Trying to respond to this and get get get and try to balance out the bottom up And then of course when you get to the christian neoplatonists You know especially uh erigina, um this this complete interpenetration Of emergence and emanation within a notion of creation not as the making of an artifact But of that complete interpenetration Of emergence and emanation I think clearly distinguishes um neoplatonism From manikinism and the best evidence for that as a simple fact is the fact that neoplatonism At multiple times in history has been a powerful instigator for science Whereas manikinism would not in any way Motivate you into the scientific investigation of the natural world it would consider that sinful egregious binding yourself to the prison, etc So i’ll continue with what david says I think your sense of the oneness of neoplatonism is not as as elitist as he claims Curious if you have looked at the new materialism he prefers. Is there any ground worth covering in the distinction? Um, so the version of the new materialism i’ve looked at is the object oriented ontology um and you you and you have to know that like people like Morton and harman harman are very concerned about neither over mining or undermining An object so take any object you undermine it if you try and reduce it just to Um its components you overmine it if you try to just reduce it to how it how it fits into a network Um, they don’t say this I would say You’ve got emanation and emergence and what you really want is an optimal grip that affords you Like cultivating the virtue of not going to either one of these vices It’s kind of a golden mean and I think that is very much what I mean by the one wanting I know that’s what I mean because I can comment on what my intent is and how i’m trying To convey it and I think the new materialism Of things uh New materialism overlaps. It’s not completely identical identical with object oriented ontology, but they overlap significantly I think the sense of material in there like I don’t even know what that’s referring to. Uh, it’s certainly not Cartesian matter. It’s certainly not a riskotillion matter. It’s certainly not what modern physicists mean by matter It’s it feels like sort of some weird newtonian And when I read the text, it’s definitely not like It’s it’s definitely not uh materialism in in any other sense than Uh that we’re talking about causation Um and not just a logical relations between propositions or something like that Look physics is seriously Considering and I mean seriously That space and time are not fundamental and as space and time are not fundamental I don’t know what material object means or the claim that it is fundamental. So, um, I think That’s what I have to say about the new materialism And then david clarifies to clarify suspect critics of neoplatonism may prefer emergence and deny emanation. Yes And looking at the middle way of the membrane between the two is what I find the most fertile area Exactly david Exactly. Thank you very much for your excellent question Uh next is from neil baird Thank you neil for your support. What are your thoughts on self-determination theory? Yes, uh, yes, um Ryan and dacey I’ve been working on integrating your work into strengthening strength training and sdd seems like a good bridge between exercise motivation and your work Yes, we uh in the paper Uh that leo and leo ferraro and I wrote It’s it’s a book chapter in uh scientific perspectives on personal wisdom um on Um our on the cognitive scientific account of wisdom. We make a lot of work, uh make a lot of use Um thankful appreciative use of self-determination theory and ideas of autonomy and competence and connectedness I I I write and Uh, I think And this is happening Um a deeper integration of the meaning in life literature Um the self-determination theory literature and the well-being literature. I’m thinking particularly, uh, michael bishop’s work Um, oh what’s his book called well-being? Very good. Very recent is what is needed right now Um, and I do contribute to that in certain ways Um, and so I think I I think highly of that theory I think it needs to be integrated in the with other theories in the way i’ve indicated Um, and I think you integrating it into your training is is a helpful thing um I would give one caution Autonomy is the The virtue par excellence for cont And it’s what leads to the fragmentation of the true the good and the beautiful um I think You have to be autonomy matters. I’m not saying but I think right now because of our historical Period those was we’re in sort of this post-continent rain shadow Um, I would emphasize connectedness Like right so give give more emphasis to connectedness Definitely track autonomy and competence but give more because this is what the this is what the meaning in life literature is showing Give more emphasis to the connectedness part I hope that helps. Uh, you know so Thank you for your support nathan hubler. Thank you nathan How do you think your work can be applied for people who are not as intellectually focused? I’ve noticed this is a common gap between academic and layman. I’m not sure the best way to bridge this gap Yeah And I keep I mean I I keep getting I got feedback today from somebody who’s Not opinion because she makes good arguments whose conclusions and observations matter About you know how I did recently like on the tim ferris show and about um First of all paying proper attention to the medium um Yeah, and and allowing people to set up context more um This and i’ve been i’ve been told i’ve been getting better but I want you to know that i’m continually working on this on bridging between Inappropriate dumbing down And inappropriate jargon and trying to find the zone of proximal development for the greatest number of people kind of a utilitarian Zone of proximal development where it’s challenging because if it’s not challenging it’s you actually won’t learn It has to be it has to be something you have to stretch yourself a little and you have to be using what’s actually Going on at the time in order to understand it So for when people just people just say oh it’s word salad Which means I just can’t and what they mean by that there’s time when that’s a legitimate criticism But there’s times when they mean I just can’t I can’t just easily assimilate that’s what I already know I don’t care about that because it shouldn’t be Easily assimilated it should require some accommodation on your part But trying to find that that up that optimal grip between inappropriate jargon and right and and sort of Talking only to other academics using that discourse and dumbing it down inappropriately And losing the argument and the challenge to and the inspiration to aspiration to transmit I’m working really hard on that. I’m getting lots of feedback. I got like I said, I get some today I’m I’m really trying to do my best to that Uh, I try and do that by entering into dialogue with other people. So it’s not just my monologue growing sort of monolithically like self-contained um I like that all I can say is I don’t have An answer maybe there isn’t one like a method I’m just I aspire to get getting better at this I’m trying to listen and learn and transform Um as much as I can And i’m also relying on other people to help me build that bridge. I can’t do it on my own So, thank you nathan. I hope I hope that’s I hope that was a responsible answer The next question is from I think it’s delta introvert very interesting handle um introverts unite quietly in your rooms by yourself. I’m an introvert too. So I uh, I understand that Lately, I learned that heraclitus or heraclitus depending on how you want to pronounce it was one of niches favorite Philosophers, of course nichi believes in the flux and heraclitus was the great philosopher of the flux this is why uh nichi doesn’t like playdo one of the many reasons of although he The worst reading you can get about playdo. I think comes from nicha because playdo regards the flux as Very problematic in and I think justifiable ways that nichi does not ever explicitly responds to he just insults playdo It’s one of the low marks within nichi’s work One of three main pre-socratic figures his ideas resonate with me very well. I wonder john Do you also have some sentiment about him? And do you think we can add can add something from him to our project of? uh of defeating the meta crisis. Yes, I think the inheritors Of heraclitus are the process uh philosophers and theologians Uh Like whitehead like my friend matt sigal, right the process theology Is the proper response and whitehead is somebody I will continue to return to again and again and again Um in in my development I can see this I know this i’m confident about that And so the process philosophers need and I try to get them into whitehead will be in the in the next series I promise you that Um, and so the process philosophers which also overlap with a lot of buddhist thought Really i’ve been trying to get them more and more into This cultural conversation we’re having in this little corner of the internet The thing about nicha is nicha only pays attention to the attention to the flux in heraclitus That everything is changing and there’s opposition what I would now call opponent processing The idea of opponent processing originates in heraclitus the tonos Nicha doesn’t quite get that enough and nicha completely misses Heraclitus on the logos Here’s heraclitus don’t listen to my words, but listen to the logos Within them Everything is one That’s also heraclitus And that also has to be understood And plato saw that in a way nicha didn’t and so the process philosophers Yes, there is Flux, but there’s also self-organization opponent processing complexification so that Is how I think we need to bring the whole and how we can bring the whole heraclidean tradition More into this cultural conversation I I am doing it and I hope to be talking with matt soon And he I recommend him strongly and his some his two books if you want to get into this So everyone Thank you So much for joining me for this q a Uh, we’re doing these Every third sunday of the month usually at 3 pm Eastern time, but please pay attention to the messages Please oh I just got a message from Madeline I’ll be talking to matt in april so you can look forward to that We’ll be doing these At 3 pm et, but please pay attention to messages from madeline because Both my schedule and her schedule are very packed a lot of stuff happening And there there’s sometimes contingencies we can’t Presage and control for so I really appreciate everybody’s flexibility And one more time. Thank you all for All of your support Financial and emotional. Thank you. So very very much Thank you for your time and attention and take good care everyone