https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=SIRWvRoBPF4
The problem of science as it stands right now is that it approaches the world as if the theory with which it’s looking at the world is not part of the universe. But it has to be part of the universe because the universe is everything. So the theory has to somehow be part of the universe, but the question is how can it be at the same time part of the universe while being the thing that’s looking at the universe trying to understand it. And I think that consciousness really is the key to this. And I think that the reason why like Jordan Peterson and even people like Sam Harris, they’re trying to talk about consciousness and sometimes they struggle to fit all those things together. There’s an intuition that consciousness is the key because consciousness is a self-referential phenomena. It is the capacity that we have to kind of in one way stand above ourselves and look at ourselves, but at the same time this capacity to look at ourselves is part of ourselves as well. And so there’s this, it’s as if the origin of consciousness is a self-referential loop moves out into the world and then becomes a coherent, let’s say structure of representation. But it starts in this necessarily self-referential loop. And that seems to be that self-referential loop at the beginning of reason or at the beginning of logic and the beginning of a structured world seems to be the thing that science or that kind of skeptic type people want to avoid. They want to avoid the inevitability of that problem of a self-referential loop at the beginning of things. Yeah, I would say this consciousness or I should say self-awareness or something like that, maybe not just consciousness, is when you begin to include yourself in your model of the universe. So we make models of the universe, that’s what we do on a regular basis. I would say you become a little bit more self-aware when you become aware of the fact that there is a theory and there are facts or there’s language and there’s facts. When you get out of the system and you see this, that’s one kind of awareness. Then I think there’s another level of awareness where you realize that or you identify with not the language, not the theory, but the mediator between the theory and the fact. It’s hard to explain but it’s… One of the things that seems to be bringing this up and this has been interesting for me to watch and I see it with especially with what Jordan Peterson has been talking about is using biology and using Darwinism as a way to show the problem of this self-referential loop because when using biology and neuropsychology and Darwinism, you have to realize that our models of the universe, the way we look at the universe, has to be part of the process which made us human. It has to be a product of evolution or a product of the manner in which we think or the manner in which we look at the world. When you use biology or Darwinism as a basis for the science, all of a sudden even physics has to be a product of evolution. Even mathematics has to be a product of evolution. It seems like there’s enough self-referential capacity for self-reference to be able to give something which looks like the hierarchy of values that we find in the traditional worldview. That’s been interesting for me to watch because the way Jordan has been presenting this hierarchy of values isn’t exactly the same ontological hierarchy that we find in a traditional representation but there’s enough correlation between the two to be able to say, okay, well you know in the Bible and when we talk about God in heaven and when we talk about angels and when we talk about earth, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a similar type of structure which is the type of dominance hierarchy as Jordan uses that you have in Darwinism. That dominance hierarchy where let’s say our theory of physics would be in that dominance hierarchy and would be let’s say a major tool that human beings have developed to interact with the world, that type of self-referential capacity is what gives the possibility of that hierarchy of values. When you think in traditional terms as in a traditional cosmology, it’s not a complicated subject at all. It’s the most obvious thing but when you try to think of it with a lens of science, materialism, then it becomes a really complicated thing because you’re trying to let’s say some kind of agreement between the traditional cosmology and the materialistic one. So that’s what’s difficult. It’s trying to reconcile those two perspectives really because when you begin to think in a traditional way, it’s not a complicated thing at all. The idea of self-reference and the notion that the universe is a fractal is one of the first things that you encounter because it’s a natural thing. Symbols are usually fractals. But I think maybe by giving a few examples from the traditional point of view, giving a few examples from the Bible might be the best way for people to see how this works and how it elucidates not only the Bible but it also elucidates our experience of the world. I don’t know if you want to talk about, I know that in your book one of the major structures that you elucidate is the relationship between the cosmic shape and the shape of the human being and how those two are images of each other. Maybe you can go a little bit into that knowing people will be able to get all the details when your book is out but maybe you can explain a little bit of how that would work. So the easiest to understand, I would say the microcosm that’s easiest to understand is the one you just said which relates an individual to the entire universe. And when we say that, we’re talking about the cosmos that’s in the Bible, not the materialistic one that we have today, the mechanistic one. We’re talking about the universe as described in traditional cosmology where you have heaven and earth and you have a mediator which is man. When you look at it like that and when you understand the idea that earth means factual reality, physical reality and heaven means ideas or theories or principles that are not manifest or that are not concrete or practical, something like that, then you can start to see that individual human beings, their shape is the same as that cosmos and it’s actually pretty obvious. We no longer see it that much because we no longer see the cosmos in the ancient way so we’re not used to seeing those connections but when you do, then you realize that an individual has a mind and a body. The mind is the equivalent of heaven and the body is the equivalent of earth. In the Bible it’s pretty clear when God creates Adam, and by the way, Adam means humanity. That example you gave itself is an example of how it’s using a particular image, a particular let’s say story of a man to be the microcosm of all of humanity. Even in the story itself it’s built to be that way. Then the shape of man, let’s say at the beginning of Genesis when God creates heaven and earth, it says God created heaven and earth, the earth was chaos and void and the spirit of God was above the waters. You have this idea of spirit and spirit is wind or breath. The word spirit, breath, soul, all those words, they refer to the breath, it means breath. Right away if you understand that you can see the relationship with heaven. In the story it says God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. Right there you can see that it’s all about joining heaven and earth. The breath comes from heaven and he raises some earth and then that’s man. Man is made from that union. It’s exactly when you talk about the mediator, then it shows exactly that man is the mediator because in the beginning these two things are completely separate. You have heaven and spirit and breath and wind above, then you have this chaotic formless earth at the bottom and those two things don’t touch each other. They’re separate and then there’s the creation of the different strats of creation, the heavens and then the grass and then it comes closer and closer and closer until you reach the human being and then the human being has the heaven enter into the earth and joins with the earth so that quite explicitly in the story man is that. He’s a microcosm of heaven and earth but also the mediator because he joins them together. He’s not just a representation of that separation but actually a representation of that union.