I was an ardent reader of Stewart Brand's Co-Evolution Quarterly back in the '70s. He championed long-termism (which I take it you're against), as well as cautions about the absurdity of exponential growth in production of energy and consumption (which we agree with) -- even an early warning the Gulf Stream Atlantic circulation might collapse. He promoted both "Small Is Beautiful" as well as, with The Well, one of the earliest online communities. And he was a great fan of Bateson's ecology of mind. What's now going by "degrowth" was the hippie dream back in the day, along with a great flowering of spiritual inquiries. Brand was subsequently discouraged, beautiful as all this dreaming was, that so little seemed accomplished to realize it.
What can we learn from that earlier wave, and its failure to successfully scale to a larger cultural and economic transformation? Part of the problem may have been painting with too broad a brush. We need, in the short term (and quickly!) growth in certain sectors. We can't just step back from technology -- as toxic as so many of the tech bros are. As a small example, degrowth arguments often focus on the cost of lithium extraction as a reason not to quickly go to electric vehicles. Fair enough, except there are now sodium-based batteries among the many alternatives to lithium. Salt is cheap and abundant. Putting capital into such material transformations requires a large dose of capitalism. Reducing the political power of evil capital (e.g. the fossil fuel industries and their investors) requires producing superior returns for good capital. We need a lot of growth in science and technology -- and that new technology rapidly deployed -- if we're to survive in our new, Anthropocene niche.
One more contrary observation: The primary political threat in many nations stems not from materialism, but from regressive spiritual claims, particularly those based in nationalisms, ethnic identities, and fundamentalist preachings. If the nationalists and fundamentalists in Europe, Asia and America were removed from their respective political arenas we'd all be far surer of steering away from the shoals of the metacrisis. Broadly, there are kinds of spiritualism which are worse than mid-century modern flavors of materialism.
Milton's Paradise Lost describes the tragedy of a previous generation of spirits being supplanted by a new one. How sad for the Gods of antiquity! Are we in a similar transition now, of needing new spirits, new religion, respecting the Abrahamic traditions for taking us this far, and now moving on to something better, something essentially more capable of a hopeful -- and fun! -- future?
Thanks Whit. These are good observations and questions. I suppose I see 'The Flip, The Formation and The Fun' as 'minimal viable vision'. I accept that the idea of 'a plan' is absurd, and until there are direct encounters with power, it is hard to judge both what is necessary and what is possible. I do agree there is much to learn from what has not worked before. I am not familiar with Stewart Brand, though it sounds like I probably should be!
Hi Jonathan, Stewart Brand went from being an organizer of the Trips Festival (https://summerof.love/trips-festival-explained/, particularly the "America needs Indians" segment) to editing the Whole Earth Catalog and then Co-evolution Quarterly through the '70s. So mostly known as an editor. More recently he's on the board of the Long Now Foundation (https://longnow.org/people/board/).
Jonathan, your Pari Centre opportunity and your invitation to us are both wonderfully juicy.
I am especially intrigued with your design challenge: To advance ideas for how to give a room of about 30 people an embodied, enacted, and relational sense of our ideas about consciousness — to make these ideas more vivid and visceral.. I thank you for the invitation.
My half-baked thoughts on what I’d do with your opportunity:
Ask the participants to take several minutes in silence deliberating on this question — ‘Given the ‘community' (of place and/or purpose) most important to you, imagine how its culture (its shared patterns of beliefs and actions) would be different if its members where 10X more conscious of their individual/collective choices, and of the consequences of those choices.
Form into trios of participants who know each other least well, and share whatever initial thoughts have emerged for depicting that new culture. The trio task is simply to hear each other in a way that is generative.
Back in total group, harvest comments from individuals on what insights are emerging for them — about content and/or process. Do this popcorn style. No need to hear from everyone.
Go through the same individual reflection time, trio time, and total group harvesting — but this time focusing on the implications of what they are learning from this experiment.
Now, given this rich ‘warm data’ experience, you, Jonathan, can feed back what you’ve been learning from them, and using their language/insights, bridge into your ‘Flip, Formation, and Fun’ framing in a way that they can easily embrace.
Finally, open the floor to Q&A,
I appreciate that I’m projecting my experience/biases on you and your opportunity. Hope it’s a helpful projection. I’d be delighted to help co-evolve the design if this ‘warm data’ strategy happens to interest you.
Jonathan, I keep getting pulled back into the rich potential implicit in your Tuscany opportunity.
Some added thoughts on the broad design I suggested:
In setting the context for this session I’d be inclined to be bold, and perhaps a bit presumptuous. E.g., advance the hypothesis that we humans are on this planet to serve as co-evolving partners in with an ever-evolving field of consciousness — but we weren’t given an instruction manual. We were outfitted with freedom of choice and countless other extraordinary gifts, and then challenged to co-evolve society as infinite games on a par with the rest of nature.
I’d identify this 3-hour session as an experiment where we collectively invite the infinite energy of consciousness to work through us in taking baby steps as co-evolving partners..
The initial request 'to have everyone take several minutes imagining how its culture would be different if its members were 10X more conscious of their choices, and of the lasting consequences of their choices’ will be challenging to most. It’ll be important to take the time to ensure that the request is understood and accepted.
This will be a challenge in imagination. We all have limiting beliefs about who we are and who we can become together. These limiting beliefs are the invisible laminations that make up the walls of our individual and collective ‘boxes’. ‘10X’ is simply a stratagem for going beyond incrementalism — a device that can help break through those laminations.
The first request will be the toughest part of the design for folks. I’d acknowledge that up front.. Allowing enough time for individual noodling, and then supporting each other in giving voice to these imaginings will help prepare the ingredients to the warm data stew that y’all will be cooking.
For the process of sharing within the trios, I would emphasize that the role of the listeners is simply to listen in a way that reflects understanding and appreciation of the individual contributions.
In teeing up for harvesting comments after the 1st trio time I might challenge the participants to be selective about what will best support growing collective consciousness in the total group.
In the second session with the same trios, it could be useful to take the time to get some alignment re what kinds of ‘implications' might best contribute to this co-evolving process.
All of the above should provide a great on-ramp to your latest thinking on the ‘Flip, Formation, and Fun’ framing — and make a strong case for the importance of community in learning to dance with consciousness.
Thank you, jonathan, for catalyzing this interaction. If it’d be helpful, I’d be delighted to engage in a bit of serial riffing on this ‘work’.
Thank you, Jonathan, for providing a succinct way to conceptualize the enormous task ahead of us. I imagine you and your team may have already considered this, but I see Social Presencing Theater and 4D Mapping as methods to help participants embody your ideas.
I am forming a local group in my town with Marty Behrens, another Substack writer I met at Limicon. I have proposed using "The Flip, The Formation, and The Fun" as a template for exploring personal transformation, collective intelligence, and social action. We are starting by exploring Value using Theory U and Collective Presencing, and we hope to incorporate SPT to bring a sense of embodiment to our process. Fingers crossed, we may form an island of coherence here in California, creating a small but hopefully consistent impact. We will see.
On another note, do you know G K Galbraith 'The Affluent Society'? My dad (a more notable Joe Bossano) used to mention it during my formative early adulthood, and I finally got round to reading it (more or less) some years ago. It speaks to economic modelling moving past a scarcity assumption. Reading from the end of the book backwards there is an alternative way society could look, in which the care/ health and education sectors are where all the money is, where our surplus is invested.
Pondering the plausibility/ viability/ realisability of this society, against a background lack of economics education, but interest and 'philosophical' reflection, I then happened to watch something on YouTube very quickly moving from one 'notable' to another's reflections on UBI: Elon Musk noted we'll probably need to do it as the robots take more and more of our jobs (to massively paraphrase), Jordan Peterson said fine, but the real problem is furnishing people with meaning, not material requisites (ditto)... and it struck me: we learn what to value from the world 'into which we're thrust, not of our own making', (allowing I think that we have to be born able to value what we go on so to do), and that a care/ health and education orientated society is one that would foster such values as to address Peterson's 'concern' (better than does a material goods economy at least).
Hoping this is a clear enough thought, of course it remains to be asked, how to get there from here. But your mention of a 'care economy' made me think mention of the thought might have non-zero value!
One thing: I'm not for panpsychism, but am for the reality of value. I think I'm for a 'neutral monism' (I watched a Thomas Nagel lecture recently on YouTube, for the word). I think I experienced a flip once upon a time not long ago, albeit one I was already kinda looking for, occasioned listening to Stephen Houlgate teaching graduate philosophy students about Hegel's metaphysics: that book that isn't The Phenomenology of Spirit. So to the thought:
Consider Being. The word conjures a Parmenidean object perhaps: the One third personally conceived. But the word isn't only a noun, which encourages this. It's also a verb. By holding the word-as-noun and word-as-verb side by side in my imagination for a couple of days or weeks I believe a new concept was generated. Being as viewed both from the inside and having an existence independent of being viewed from some pov or other. This idea has been foundational for further personal work on understanding myself, the world, and myself and others in it.
I'm generally a fan of Nagel so I will look into 'neutral monism', thanks.
I am all for Being, and recognise the depth and versatility of the term, but you seem to be saying something else that I can't quite grasp. In general I am more inclined to emphasise becoming than being, but obviously they are reciprocally implicated.
I've said in a comment to one of your colleagues' writing on substack that I think we need to bridge Parmenides and Heraclitus. Heraclitus won't do alone as one needs to bring Parmenideans over to one's way of seeing things. If being and becoming are reciprocally implicated what is the underlying nature 'of the beast'? How to conceive it? The Parmenideans think (I suspect) that becoming is just what 4d being looks like from within it. It's not real, but appearance. There needs to be a move forwards. A neo-Parmenidean vision. Something hard to make work. The becoming aspect is just as real. (I'm thinking now of Iain McGilchrist's 'God is becoming along...')
Hi Joe. I think bridging Parmenides and Heraclitus is a good idea, and Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani has an important insight on this in his book "Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy."
Karatani thinks Hegel got Parmenides wrong. He thinks Parmenides and Heraclitus were actually quite aligned; both actually pushing back against Pythagoras, who saw the world as static, and therefore motion was viewed as an illusion. According to Karatani, Parmenides was arguing against this view of a dual world; that "if we take the Pythagorean view, motion cannot exist. This was a rejection not of mobility, but of the static view of the world." (p. 89)
"...What Parmenides maintained is that motion is indivisible, that is to say, One. He sought to show this by indirect proof, and his pupil Zeno employed the same method." (p. 91)
You ask, "if being and becoming are reciprocally implicated what is the underlying nature 'of the beast'?" Karatani's answer: "What Parmenides advises is to first clear away this kind of illusion and move on to inquiry into mortal opinions (phenomena). Put another way, clear away Pythagorean philosophy, and return to the path of understanding of nature opened by the Ionian school, and proceed further down that path."
Hi David. Thank you for this. My philosophical education, though formal, is old and patchy, so I'll have to do some work given what you've said... Thanks much for the pointers.
Maybe something like this: how do you get a genuinely dynamic conception of reality into a person's head? Well the idea would be to get an idea of a genuinely dynamic reality over, but this might entail having a dynamic idea. I.e. only a dynamic conception can be a conception of a dynamic reality. (I've said 'dynamic' many times!)
Is this a cheat?: is one tricking someone into thinking 'interioristically' about reality (right-hemispherically?) by engendering thinking dynamically because that's the only way one can really GET what it is for a thing to be dynamic rather than static, REALLY processive rather than just B-seriated? Bergson is of course in the air in these moves.
'Is this a cheat?' matters to me because I'm concerned with getting the metaphysics right, but it'll impact whether the ideas take, too. And it's tricky. I'm not sure if this 'flip' (Parmenides to something more Heraclitean: a Heraclitean version of the Parmenidean vision) is motivated by the wish or need to make hoped for possibilities real possibilities. Is it legitimate enough to say 'I need X to be possible, therefore I am going to think reality is thus and so'? Reality may be thus and so after all, if I can get that metaphysics off the ground, so would that mean X is possible? Does 'it's possible that X is possible' entail 'X is possible'? But I probably wildly and hamfistedly digress.
(I do hope you read this, but mostly also only if you don't think it nonsense/ pointless/ too rambling/ stupid etc!)
PPS I recall your mentions of McTaggart, with whom I've also engaged. Of course if you're reading all this you'll have clocked the allusion above. I dare say I'd love to talk to you on zoom about McTaggart and where to go with him, but that this is a silly thing I'm saying/ doing/ suggesting, i.e. you're a busy guy with important stuff to do and an actual life, and you don't know me from adam, and I'm a bit of a stalkery child looking thing out here in the random reaches of your intellectual community.
There's no way you're reading all this near-twaddle. Still...:
Where I ended up with McTaggart was, ok so the A-series isn't real as you and your interpreters seem to have that thesis play out, BUT would we not consider time real if all times were 'like the present', i.e. if the B-series were the B-series of the present at different times?
So the question for me becomes, how to make sense of the putative difference between a static and a dynamic B-series, where the former is kinda sub specie aeternitatis, and the latter as viewed from the only place/s within the series from which anything is viewed, namely some present or other, such that the latter gets something the former does not.
My mind goes to free will, and that the world in time is such that it is possible to act in.
Ok how about: can one imaginary integrate the phenomenology of the third personal worldview with the phenomenology of i-thou worldview? Does this approximate, can one analyse out left and right hemispheric contributions to right-on phenomenology and then resynthesise?
"a shift in what and how we value that co-arises, inspires or follows from The Flip"
I'm thinking on "co-arises, inspires or follows". What's the right way looking at the idea of thinking something new changing how you see everything, changing YOU?
In particular 'follows' as the logical-ish follows, a thought qua proposition/ network of such has other thought/s as consequence is presumably not it at all. But I guess 'the Flip' isn't about thinking something new in such a sense. One is to learn something in the sense one is to change. Then 'what follows' is as much 'what happens next' as 'what is consequent' in a logical-ish sense. Is there a better word, one that is more forcible in expressing this?
Hoping not to be presumptuous, and in case you don't get notified unless comments are replies to your post, I've followed up your reply to my earlier comment.
So now what? How to flip? How we act is a function of how we think and we need a new creation story where we think of ourselves as sacred creatures in a sacred universe instead of self-absorbed sinners who climb over each other to get the most goods -- or however you characterize this elemental difference between a cooperative society versus individuals serving themselves. It's what my Substack -- strangely singularly as far as I've found -- is all about. If I ran the world I'd teach everyone the Universe Story -- Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as the best contemporary storyteller. Try this post for the essence of it: "Get humanity tuned into itself!" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/get-humanity-tuned-into-itself
I am not sure, Suzanne. It is worth asking how to encourage the flip (if it is indeed singular - perhaps it is not) and I share some of the sacred perspective you outline. However, I have written before about why 'why need a new story' doesn't work for me. And I am concerned with any model that feels mostly or exclusively top down. The challenge is somehow to offer a way of sharing that world that remains dynamic and is simultaneously top-down, bottom-up, inside-out and side to side.
The foundation of the flip is the RH-DYNAMICS as a helping hand to the LH-DYNAMICS which is entirely top-down. This is an ancient story originating when Man separated from God, limiting his intellect to LH-dynamics: Top-down-side-to-side-inside-out. The Helper, the Holy Spirit is RH-dynamics: bottom-up-cause-effect-of-flip-from-LH-to-RH. This is from self-referential to All-referential of equality, love, joy and peace. A correction of errors in the simulation of Life unfolding, all at once. Deep-Logic-as-deep-as-the-depth-of-complexity. This is true reductionism of an instant irreducible flip to a one-dimensional ordered list based on free energy. The basis for the Free Lunch Society. You only need to let the Universe know what you desire to create. And the will of the Universe becomes your free will. We have good evidence of free energy of the mind of the Universe, as well as in the RH. Ions move in both directions of order and negative entropy (Schrödinger, "What is Life.") Stuart Brand: floating upstream, (Fluid dynamics). For me personally it looks like we are already in a simulation, and it would be foolish to think we can compete with the computer of the Universe. We have, however, the use of our simulated AI to become fully conscious of how to escape our earthly complexity. With love, Brother Nelson.
You don't know the Universe Story. You are shockingly ignorant, ranting on and on, shamefully uninformed and doing a great disservice to you readers. You need to bone up. It is anything but top down or reliant on heroes. You can get an education on my Substack. Pay attention to the ones with Brian Swimme as the thumbnail: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com. This is not to slam you but to urge you to wise up, and then we can be allies in helping this hurting world.
I was an ardent reader of Stewart Brand's Co-Evolution Quarterly back in the '70s. He championed long-termism (which I take it you're against), as well as cautions about the absurdity of exponential growth in production of energy and consumption (which we agree with) -- even an early warning the Gulf Stream Atlantic circulation might collapse. He promoted both "Small Is Beautiful" as well as, with The Well, one of the earliest online communities. And he was a great fan of Bateson's ecology of mind. What's now going by "degrowth" was the hippie dream back in the day, along with a great flowering of spiritual inquiries. Brand was subsequently discouraged, beautiful as all this dreaming was, that so little seemed accomplished to realize it.
What can we learn from that earlier wave, and its failure to successfully scale to a larger cultural and economic transformation? Part of the problem may have been painting with too broad a brush. We need, in the short term (and quickly!) growth in certain sectors. We can't just step back from technology -- as toxic as so many of the tech bros are. As a small example, degrowth arguments often focus on the cost of lithium extraction as a reason not to quickly go to electric vehicles. Fair enough, except there are now sodium-based batteries among the many alternatives to lithium. Salt is cheap and abundant. Putting capital into such material transformations requires a large dose of capitalism. Reducing the political power of evil capital (e.g. the fossil fuel industries and their investors) requires producing superior returns for good capital. We need a lot of growth in science and technology -- and that new technology rapidly deployed -- if we're to survive in our new, Anthropocene niche.
One more contrary observation: The primary political threat in many nations stems not from materialism, but from regressive spiritual claims, particularly those based in nationalisms, ethnic identities, and fundamentalist preachings. If the nationalists and fundamentalists in Europe, Asia and America were removed from their respective political arenas we'd all be far surer of steering away from the shoals of the metacrisis. Broadly, there are kinds of spiritualism which are worse than mid-century modern flavors of materialism.
Milton's Paradise Lost describes the tragedy of a previous generation of spirits being supplanted by a new one. How sad for the Gods of antiquity! Are we in a similar transition now, of needing new spirits, new religion, respecting the Abrahamic traditions for taking us this far, and now moving on to something better, something essentially more capable of a hopeful -- and fun! -- future?
Thanks Whit. These are good observations and questions. I suppose I see 'The Flip, The Formation and The Fun' as 'minimal viable vision'. I accept that the idea of 'a plan' is absurd, and until there are direct encounters with power, it is hard to judge both what is necessary and what is possible. I do agree there is much to learn from what has not worked before. I am not familiar with Stewart Brand, though it sounds like I probably should be!
Hi Jonathan, Stewart Brand went from being an organizer of the Trips Festival (https://summerof.love/trips-festival-explained/, particularly the "America needs Indians" segment) to editing the Whole Earth Catalog and then Co-evolution Quarterly through the '70s. So mostly known as an editor. More recently he's on the board of the Long Now Foundation (https://longnow.org/people/board/).
Stewart Brand also wrote How Buildings Learn - which gave me a much different view of how a building adapts through time.
Jonathan, your Pari Centre opportunity and your invitation to us are both wonderfully juicy.
I am especially intrigued with your design challenge: To advance ideas for how to give a room of about 30 people an embodied, enacted, and relational sense of our ideas about consciousness — to make these ideas more vivid and visceral.. I thank you for the invitation.
My half-baked thoughts on what I’d do with your opportunity:
Ask the participants to take several minutes in silence deliberating on this question — ‘Given the ‘community' (of place and/or purpose) most important to you, imagine how its culture (its shared patterns of beliefs and actions) would be different if its members where 10X more conscious of their individual/collective choices, and of the consequences of those choices.
Form into trios of participants who know each other least well, and share whatever initial thoughts have emerged for depicting that new culture. The trio task is simply to hear each other in a way that is generative.
Back in total group, harvest comments from individuals on what insights are emerging for them — about content and/or process. Do this popcorn style. No need to hear from everyone.
Go through the same individual reflection time, trio time, and total group harvesting — but this time focusing on the implications of what they are learning from this experiment.
Now, given this rich ‘warm data’ experience, you, Jonathan, can feed back what you’ve been learning from them, and using their language/insights, bridge into your ‘Flip, Formation, and Fun’ framing in a way that they can easily embrace.
Finally, open the floor to Q&A,
I appreciate that I’m projecting my experience/biases on you and your opportunity. Hope it’s a helpful projection. I’d be delighted to help co-evolve the design if this ‘warm data’ strategy happens to interest you.
Blessings, BillVeltrop@comcast.net
Thanks Bill. Much appreciated. I’ll think on it.
Jonathan, I keep getting pulled back into the rich potential implicit in your Tuscany opportunity.
Some added thoughts on the broad design I suggested:
In setting the context for this session I’d be inclined to be bold, and perhaps a bit presumptuous. E.g., advance the hypothesis that we humans are on this planet to serve as co-evolving partners in with an ever-evolving field of consciousness — but we weren’t given an instruction manual. We were outfitted with freedom of choice and countless other extraordinary gifts, and then challenged to co-evolve society as infinite games on a par with the rest of nature.
I’d identify this 3-hour session as an experiment where we collectively invite the infinite energy of consciousness to work through us in taking baby steps as co-evolving partners..
The initial request 'to have everyone take several minutes imagining how its culture would be different if its members were 10X more conscious of their choices, and of the lasting consequences of their choices’ will be challenging to most. It’ll be important to take the time to ensure that the request is understood and accepted.
This will be a challenge in imagination. We all have limiting beliefs about who we are and who we can become together. These limiting beliefs are the invisible laminations that make up the walls of our individual and collective ‘boxes’. ‘10X’ is simply a stratagem for going beyond incrementalism — a device that can help break through those laminations.
The first request will be the toughest part of the design for folks. I’d acknowledge that up front.. Allowing enough time for individual noodling, and then supporting each other in giving voice to these imaginings will help prepare the ingredients to the warm data stew that y’all will be cooking.
For the process of sharing within the trios, I would emphasize that the role of the listeners is simply to listen in a way that reflects understanding and appreciation of the individual contributions.
In teeing up for harvesting comments after the 1st trio time I might challenge the participants to be selective about what will best support growing collective consciousness in the total group.
In the second session with the same trios, it could be useful to take the time to get some alignment re what kinds of ‘implications' might best contribute to this co-evolving process.
All of the above should provide a great on-ramp to your latest thinking on the ‘Flip, Formation, and Fun’ framing — and make a strong case for the importance of community in learning to dance with consciousness.
Thank you, jonathan, for catalyzing this interaction. If it’d be helpful, I’d be delighted to engage in a bit of serial riffing on this ‘work’.
More blessings.
Thank you, Jonathan, for providing a succinct way to conceptualize the enormous task ahead of us. I imagine you and your team may have already considered this, but I see Social Presencing Theater and 4D Mapping as methods to help participants embody your ideas.
I am forming a local group in my town with Marty Behrens, another Substack writer I met at Limicon. I have proposed using "The Flip, The Formation, and The Fun" as a template for exploring personal transformation, collective intelligence, and social action. We are starting by exploring Value using Theory U and Collective Presencing, and we hope to incorporate SPT to bring a sense of embodiment to our process. Fingers crossed, we may form an island of coherence here in California, creating a small but hopefully consistent impact. We will see.
Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet by Matthew T. Huber
Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant
The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective
Great reads above as well. And I agree immensely that a paradigm shift is required. Enjoy!
Hot damn Jonathan, this is some top notch stuff. Thanks for composing
Wonderful - thank you. Growing toward goodness is a lovely priority and call to action.
On another note, do you know G K Galbraith 'The Affluent Society'? My dad (a more notable Joe Bossano) used to mention it during my formative early adulthood, and I finally got round to reading it (more or less) some years ago. It speaks to economic modelling moving past a scarcity assumption. Reading from the end of the book backwards there is an alternative way society could look, in which the care/ health and education sectors are where all the money is, where our surplus is invested.
Pondering the plausibility/ viability/ realisability of this society, against a background lack of economics education, but interest and 'philosophical' reflection, I then happened to watch something on YouTube very quickly moving from one 'notable' to another's reflections on UBI: Elon Musk noted we'll probably need to do it as the robots take more and more of our jobs (to massively paraphrase), Jordan Peterson said fine, but the real problem is furnishing people with meaning, not material requisites (ditto)... and it struck me: we learn what to value from the world 'into which we're thrust, not of our own making', (allowing I think that we have to be born able to value what we go on so to do), and that a care/ health and education orientated society is one that would foster such values as to address Peterson's 'concern' (better than does a material goods economy at least).
Hoping this is a clear enough thought, of course it remains to be asked, how to get there from here. But your mention of a 'care economy' made me think mention of the thought might have non-zero value!
One thing: I'm not for panpsychism, but am for the reality of value. I think I'm for a 'neutral monism' (I watched a Thomas Nagel lecture recently on YouTube, for the word). I think I experienced a flip once upon a time not long ago, albeit one I was already kinda looking for, occasioned listening to Stephen Houlgate teaching graduate philosophy students about Hegel's metaphysics: that book that isn't The Phenomenology of Spirit. So to the thought:
Consider Being. The word conjures a Parmenidean object perhaps: the One third personally conceived. But the word isn't only a noun, which encourages this. It's also a verb. By holding the word-as-noun and word-as-verb side by side in my imagination for a couple of days or weeks I believe a new concept was generated. Being as viewed both from the inside and having an existence independent of being viewed from some pov or other. This idea has been foundational for further personal work on understanding myself, the world, and myself and others in it.
I'm generally a fan of Nagel so I will look into 'neutral monism', thanks.
I am all for Being, and recognise the depth and versatility of the term, but you seem to be saying something else that I can't quite grasp. In general I am more inclined to emphasise becoming than being, but obviously they are reciprocally implicated.
Morning. Thanks.
https://youtu.be/VU4u-LfkI7w?si=o8Fdc43B9DYQcRBE
I've said in a comment to one of your colleagues' writing on substack that I think we need to bridge Parmenides and Heraclitus. Heraclitus won't do alone as one needs to bring Parmenideans over to one's way of seeing things. If being and becoming are reciprocally implicated what is the underlying nature 'of the beast'? How to conceive it? The Parmenideans think (I suspect) that becoming is just what 4d being looks like from within it. It's not real, but appearance. There needs to be a move forwards. A neo-Parmenidean vision. Something hard to make work. The becoming aspect is just as real. (I'm thinking now of Iain McGilchrist's 'God is becoming along...')
Hi Joe. I think bridging Parmenides and Heraclitus is a good idea, and Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani has an important insight on this in his book "Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy."
Karatani thinks Hegel got Parmenides wrong. He thinks Parmenides and Heraclitus were actually quite aligned; both actually pushing back against Pythagoras, who saw the world as static, and therefore motion was viewed as an illusion. According to Karatani, Parmenides was arguing against this view of a dual world; that "if we take the Pythagorean view, motion cannot exist. This was a rejection not of mobility, but of the static view of the world." (p. 89)
"...What Parmenides maintained is that motion is indivisible, that is to say, One. He sought to show this by indirect proof, and his pupil Zeno employed the same method." (p. 91)
You ask, "if being and becoming are reciprocally implicated what is the underlying nature 'of the beast'?" Karatani's answer: "What Parmenides advises is to first clear away this kind of illusion and move on to inquiry into mortal opinions (phenomena). Put another way, clear away Pythagorean philosophy, and return to the path of understanding of nature opened by the Ionian school, and proceed further down that path."
Hi David. Thank you for this. My philosophical education, though formal, is old and patchy, so I'll have to do some work given what you've said... Thanks much for the pointers.
PS Hegel's The Science of Logic
Maybe something like this: how do you get a genuinely dynamic conception of reality into a person's head? Well the idea would be to get an idea of a genuinely dynamic reality over, but this might entail having a dynamic idea. I.e. only a dynamic conception can be a conception of a dynamic reality. (I've said 'dynamic' many times!)
Is this a cheat?: is one tricking someone into thinking 'interioristically' about reality (right-hemispherically?) by engendering thinking dynamically because that's the only way one can really GET what it is for a thing to be dynamic rather than static, REALLY processive rather than just B-seriated? Bergson is of course in the air in these moves.
'Is this a cheat?' matters to me because I'm concerned with getting the metaphysics right, but it'll impact whether the ideas take, too. And it's tricky. I'm not sure if this 'flip' (Parmenides to something more Heraclitean: a Heraclitean version of the Parmenidean vision) is motivated by the wish or need to make hoped for possibilities real possibilities. Is it legitimate enough to say 'I need X to be possible, therefore I am going to think reality is thus and so'? Reality may be thus and so after all, if I can get that metaphysics off the ground, so would that mean X is possible? Does 'it's possible that X is possible' entail 'X is possible'? But I probably wildly and hamfistedly digress.
(I do hope you read this, but mostly also only if you don't think it nonsense/ pointless/ too rambling/ stupid etc!)
PPS I recall your mentions of McTaggart, with whom I've also engaged. Of course if you're reading all this you'll have clocked the allusion above. I dare say I'd love to talk to you on zoom about McTaggart and where to go with him, but that this is a silly thing I'm saying/ doing/ suggesting, i.e. you're a busy guy with important stuff to do and an actual life, and you don't know me from adam, and I'm a bit of a stalkery child looking thing out here in the random reaches of your intellectual community.
There's no way you're reading all this near-twaddle. Still...:
Where I ended up with McTaggart was, ok so the A-series isn't real as you and your interpreters seem to have that thesis play out, BUT would we not consider time real if all times were 'like the present', i.e. if the B-series were the B-series of the present at different times?
So the question for me becomes, how to make sense of the putative difference between a static and a dynamic B-series, where the former is kinda sub specie aeternitatis, and the latter as viewed from the only place/s within the series from which anything is viewed, namely some present or other, such that the latter gets something the former does not.
My mind goes to free will, and that the world in time is such that it is possible to act in.
Ok how about: can one imaginary integrate the phenomenology of the third personal worldview with the phenomenology of i-thou worldview? Does this approximate, can one analyse out left and right hemispheric contributions to right-on phenomenology and then resynthesise?
"a shift in what and how we value that co-arises, inspires or follows from The Flip"
I'm thinking on "co-arises, inspires or follows". What's the right way looking at the idea of thinking something new changing how you see everything, changing YOU?
In particular 'follows' as the logical-ish follows, a thought qua proposition/ network of such has other thought/s as consequence is presumably not it at all. But I guess 'the Flip' isn't about thinking something new in such a sense. One is to learn something in the sense one is to change. Then 'what follows' is as much 'what happens next' as 'what is consequent' in a logical-ish sense. Is there a better word, one that is more forcible in expressing this?
Ramifies?
Hoping not to be presumptuous, and in case you don't get notified unless comments are replies to your post, I've followed up your reply to my earlier comment.
So now what? How to flip? How we act is a function of how we think and we need a new creation story where we think of ourselves as sacred creatures in a sacred universe instead of self-absorbed sinners who climb over each other to get the most goods -- or however you characterize this elemental difference between a cooperative society versus individuals serving themselves. It's what my Substack -- strangely singularly as far as I've found -- is all about. If I ran the world I'd teach everyone the Universe Story -- Teilhard to Thomas Berry to Brian Swimme as the best contemporary storyteller. Try this post for the essence of it: "Get humanity tuned into itself!" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/get-humanity-tuned-into-itself
I am not sure, Suzanne. It is worth asking how to encourage the flip (if it is indeed singular - perhaps it is not) and I share some of the sacred perspective you outline. However, I have written before about why 'why need a new story' doesn't work for me. And I am concerned with any model that feels mostly or exclusively top down. The challenge is somehow to offer a way of sharing that world that remains dynamic and is simultaneously top-down, bottom-up, inside-out and side to side.
https://jonathanrowson.substack.com/p/we-dont-need-a-new-story
https://www.thersa.org/blog/2014/04/top-down-bottom-up-side-to-side-inside-out-4-types-of-social-change-and-why-we-need-them-all
The foundation of the flip is the RH-DYNAMICS as a helping hand to the LH-DYNAMICS which is entirely top-down. This is an ancient story originating when Man separated from God, limiting his intellect to LH-dynamics: Top-down-side-to-side-inside-out. The Helper, the Holy Spirit is RH-dynamics: bottom-up-cause-effect-of-flip-from-LH-to-RH. This is from self-referential to All-referential of equality, love, joy and peace. A correction of errors in the simulation of Life unfolding, all at once. Deep-Logic-as-deep-as-the-depth-of-complexity. This is true reductionism of an instant irreducible flip to a one-dimensional ordered list based on free energy. The basis for the Free Lunch Society. You only need to let the Universe know what you desire to create. And the will of the Universe becomes your free will. We have good evidence of free energy of the mind of the Universe, as well as in the RH. Ions move in both directions of order and negative entropy (Schrödinger, "What is Life.") Stuart Brand: floating upstream, (Fluid dynamics). For me personally it looks like we are already in a simulation, and it would be foolish to think we can compete with the computer of the Universe. We have, however, the use of our simulated AI to become fully conscious of how to escape our earthly complexity. With love, Brother Nelson.
You don't know the Universe Story. You are shockingly ignorant, ranting on and on, shamefully uninformed and doing a great disservice to you readers. You need to bone up. It is anything but top down or reliant on heroes. You can get an education on my Substack. Pay attention to the ones with Brian Swimme as the thumbnail: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com. This is not to slam you but to urge you to wise up, and then we can be allies in helping this hurting world.