Curt, what I liked most about this interview/podcast was, to me, it didn’t fully feel like one. This is just my perspective, but it seems that you and Iain have spent enough time communicating with one another, that you’re fully capable of engaging in a genuine “conversation.”
That’s what it felt like to me. An honest conversation between two people who respect each other. I really enjoyed that aspect of it!
Watching this right after the Graham Priest episode about dialetheism is beautifully enlightening. In McGilchrist's view, I love how the analytic details I have gained from "zooming in" (referencing the "white rectangle on the lawn" example) on two separate episodes culminate into an enhanced worldview only once I "zoom out" to consider how they harmonize.
intensely underwhelming. i think iain, like some gurus and charlatans, anchors his metaphilosophy to extreme/peak experiences. catharsis, ecstasy, flow, absurd, terror, elation, sublime, rapture et al.
VIBES. intense vibes. very real vibes.
i acknowledge and am in awe about such experiential states, and i find that i align with iain in appreciating that the differential (informational) structure of whatever exists, matters explanatorily. that said, i doubt that iain can offer any novel, non-derivative, critical contribution to eg. physical theories or indeed, philosophy. his 'tome' is full of sesquipedalian nothingburgers with a very skewed signal:noise ratio towards noise and just saying things and quoting stuff.
a huge red flag that triggers epistemic vigilance is his atrocious misrepresentation of 'postmodernism'. he just doesn't seem like he understands or is even aware of that memeplex's complexity and dishomogeneity. listening to him riff can be like reading ayn rand philosophy. atrocious and irritatingly ignorant.
his text reminds me of the obnoxious omnisolver paradigm; he has pages full of bombastic conjectures, vibes, but also lots of poor criticisms and dubious metaphilosophy. and despite him acknowledging uncertainty, known & unknown unknowns, clearly displaying awareness, cognitive nimbleness and the ability to play meta and assume the infinite game stance, there's something intensely off-putting in how he still manages to arrive not to a global quietism or suspension of judgement about any particular information or positive claims about the conjectural 'something more, something different, over & above', the 'meaning', the 'mattering' aspects of reality, but to obscure, mysterious and rather dubiously coherent evasive manoeuvering through which he seems to affirm... well, what, exactly? good question. he's just not getting there. perhaps because there is no 'there there'. but he seems unable to accept that position and just riffs endlessly, occasionally affirming robust distinctions extremely vaguely, switching tracks and offering yet an other quotation, yet an other underspecified allusion to robust distinctions without thorough, critical evaluation, as if he's just extremely well-read and able to cite existing debates, but offering not much more than poor argumentation and vibes, but taking all that very seriously.
perhaps he is either not willing to pithily share his substantive views + their motivations, or he's confused, or he's aware of the whole lot of nothing behind his musings, yet simply wants reality to be in certain ways over others, realizes that he cannot offer a compelling account and/or motivations to convince others to align with his preferred configuration of the differential informational structure of reality, so obfuscates and assumes this ultra-slippery quote-maxxing evasive stance, but i remain unconvinced that he's some great thinker. his stuff is SO ripe for culty group dynamics, and he reminds me of charismatic cult leaders, which i don't like.
that said, i'm fallible, open, curious, vastly more ignorant than not, so i welcome any response. i sincerely don't think that iain or you can offer a more convincing and intellectually honest memeplex than acknowleding our sprawling ignorance, fallibilism, empirical stance and/or quietism wrt 'metaphysics'.
What an interesting response. Have you ever worked in construction, industrial manufacturing, electrical, plumbing, maintenance or any other blue collar field?
And on a personal note, do you truly only see yourself as “an organism” and if so, why do you think that is?
I combine my experiences of: set theory, Virtual reality mathematics, meta-mathematics, Chaos theory, Number Theory, Surreal Numbers, LOF (Laws of Form, by g spencer brown), theoretical physics, philosophy of physics/mathematics, fuzzy logic, brain science, etc. to understand. Lain's understanding is poetic word combinations which has some value. Understanding of anything, has a beautiful deep fractal structure.
yea but that's the baseline & applies for everyone. unproblematic. bloviating omnisolvers like iain add... what? do you honestly think that his books could be canon? i don't think so.
it's wildly onanistic yet sincere enough to acknowledge considerations and seemingly ineliminable states of affairs of our philosophical affordances that suggest that the ignorance-aware, fallibilist, empiricist, quietist stance i mention at the end of my rant destabilizes and dissolves any substantive, non-trivial conjecturing about nonempirical reality. the alleged over-and-above-something-more-something-different-transcendental-mattering-intrinsic-fundamental whatever—you know what i mean 😉, remains obscurely kept alive via nods to certain experiences and a metaphilosophy based on those experiences, but why would any experience evidence any particular speculative nonempirical explanation over any other? hence, vibes + hubris.
eg. saying that consciousness (?) is a phase of matter is just that. a slogan, a deepity to say. how specifically would this explain any particular relation between x brain states and experience? why isn't consciousness a lallanx of mattre? huge amounts of just using delicious utterances, bathing in custom-made philosophers' terms of art, esoteric words, without progress or creative problem solving. bombastic, stalling onanism.
I combine my experiences of: set theory, Virtual reality mathematics, meta-mathematics, Chaos theory, Number Theory, Surreal Numbers, LOF (Laws of Form, by g spencer brown), theoretical physics, philosophy of physics/mathematics, fuzzy logic, brain science, etc. to understand. Lain's understanding is poetic word combinations which has some value. Understanding of anything, has a beautiful deep fractal structure.
I suspect this has to be a spoof response produced through one of those postmodern content generators that were created in the aftermath of the Sokal affair. See https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/
Thank you for the reply. I fully concede my initial parsing of the response was met with failure to rapidly and easily follow your arguments.
And I fully concede I am not accustomed to reading postmodernesque.
But a multi-paragraph response without standard punctuation, peppered with words unlikely to be familiar to anyone outside of certain academic/niche circles, is perhaps not going to be an effective way of articulating a position in dialogical discussion with a general audience of mostly intelligent and interested and engaged readers/viewers.
So, with respect, I acknowledge you believe you have clearly articulated your problems with Iain’s work, but only for a very closed group of potential readers/viewers - who I suspect are not at all interested in engaging with Iain’s work, but only in dismissing it out of hand, because mockery and denegration of anything held up as traditional or valuable, are, from the links you provided, standard tools for anyone assuming the postmodern stance.
I grudgingly admire your evident commitment to the solipsistic nihilism of the postmodern position, and since it is literally impossible to convince or change the mindset of someone ideology, I can only say, “cherishit”
you're not making much sense with soundbites like 'solipsistic nihilism of the postmodern position'. i endorse neither of those three stances. also, idk what exactly you think was postmodernesque. i in fact never read original postmodern canon texts, only read secondary, mostly critical literature about it, since the signal: noise ratio in those works is skewed towards noise, and they're also more often than not unempirical, which i don't prefer.
i have no commitment to nihilism, solipsism, or postmodernism, although i do enjoy relentless attention to detail, going meta, and not just passively absorbing whatever some high status person says without inquiry. i do think that iain's latest work was useful for me and i did learn a lot, but it's far from a great philosophical work imho.
the videos i linked aren't bad faith. while some of those creators may approach anti-postmodern propaganda & bullshitting with derisive humor, they're not disingenuous, but actually properly referenced responses to and debunkings of people who smear a strawman version of postmodernism with zingy buzzphrases and poor, ahistorical analysis, eg. steven hicks' work.
I've been waiting for this!! Great podcast, some of the questions got really deep & beyond just the text of his books (I feel like McGilchrist has a habit of just retelling his books during podcasts, which is understandable but dissapointing). I appreciate you being so open about your struggles and how TMaHE helped you out of it. I also was at a lower point in my life (but not nearly as bad) when I first found TMwT, and it really helped me through that time & beyond. Despite your tiredness you were still plenty prepared!
Curt, I much appreciate the wonderful sincerity, openness, and depth/breadth of communication in the dialogue between you and lain. Many thanks to you both. To me, however, attributions to the left/right brain within reductive physicalism is better understood as instantiations of deeper ontic and epistemic principles -- not addressed. I'd like to explore a deeper ontology ('levels of nature') and a deeper epistemology (direct experience in natural 'higher states of consciousness') that modern science is beginning to glimpse (and both you and lain seemed to be on the verge of getting at) that is profoundly described (but frequently overlooked) in Veda. I'd like to suggest recent papers/books as a direction but first want to know how prefer this to be approached. With much respect, appreciation, and interest, RW Boyer (Bob)
Curt, what I liked most about this interview/podcast was, to me, it didn’t fully feel like one. This is just my perspective, but it seems that you and Iain have spent enough time communicating with one another, that you’re fully capable of engaging in a genuine “conversation.”
That’s what it felt like to me. An honest conversation between two people who respect each other. I really enjoyed that aspect of it!
I do hope you get some sleep. 😊
Watching this right after the Graham Priest episode about dialetheism is beautifully enlightening. In McGilchrist's view, I love how the analytic details I have gained from "zooming in" (referencing the "white rectangle on the lawn" example) on two separate episodes culminate into an enhanced worldview only once I "zoom out" to consider how they harmonize.
intensely underwhelming. i think iain, like some gurus and charlatans, anchors his metaphilosophy to extreme/peak experiences. catharsis, ecstasy, flow, absurd, terror, elation, sublime, rapture et al.
VIBES. intense vibes. very real vibes.
i acknowledge and am in awe about such experiential states, and i find that i align with iain in appreciating that the differential (informational) structure of whatever exists, matters explanatorily. that said, i doubt that iain can offer any novel, non-derivative, critical contribution to eg. physical theories or indeed, philosophy. his 'tome' is full of sesquipedalian nothingburgers with a very skewed signal:noise ratio towards noise and just saying things and quoting stuff.
a huge red flag that triggers epistemic vigilance is his atrocious misrepresentation of 'postmodernism'. he just doesn't seem like he understands or is even aware of that memeplex's complexity and dishomogeneity. listening to him riff can be like reading ayn rand philosophy. atrocious and irritatingly ignorant.
his text reminds me of the obnoxious omnisolver paradigm; he has pages full of bombastic conjectures, vibes, but also lots of poor criticisms and dubious metaphilosophy. and despite him acknowledging uncertainty, known & unknown unknowns, clearly displaying awareness, cognitive nimbleness and the ability to play meta and assume the infinite game stance, there's something intensely off-putting in how he still manages to arrive not to a global quietism or suspension of judgement about any particular information or positive claims about the conjectural 'something more, something different, over & above', the 'meaning', the 'mattering' aspects of reality, but to obscure, mysterious and rather dubiously coherent evasive manoeuvering through which he seems to affirm... well, what, exactly? good question. he's just not getting there. perhaps because there is no 'there there'. but he seems unable to accept that position and just riffs endlessly, occasionally affirming robust distinctions extremely vaguely, switching tracks and offering yet an other quotation, yet an other underspecified allusion to robust distinctions without thorough, critical evaluation, as if he's just extremely well-read and able to cite existing debates, but offering not much more than poor argumentation and vibes, but taking all that very seriously.
perhaps he is either not willing to pithily share his substantive views + their motivations, or he's confused, or he's aware of the whole lot of nothing behind his musings, yet simply wants reality to be in certain ways over others, realizes that he cannot offer a compelling account and/or motivations to convince others to align with his preferred configuration of the differential informational structure of reality, so obfuscates and assumes this ultra-slippery quote-maxxing evasive stance, but i remain unconvinced that he's some great thinker. his stuff is SO ripe for culty group dynamics, and he reminds me of charismatic cult leaders, which i don't like.
that said, i'm fallible, open, curious, vastly more ignorant than not, so i welcome any response. i sincerely don't think that iain or you can offer a more convincing and intellectually honest memeplex than acknowleding our sprawling ignorance, fallibilism, empirical stance and/or quietism wrt 'metaphysics'.
What an interesting response. Have you ever worked in construction, industrial manufacturing, electrical, plumbing, maintenance or any other blue collar field?
And on a personal note, do you truly only see yourself as “an organism” and if so, why do you think that is?
I combine my experiences of: set theory, Virtual reality mathematics, meta-mathematics, Chaos theory, Number Theory, Surreal Numbers, LOF (Laws of Form, by g spencer brown), theoretical physics, philosophy of physics/mathematics, fuzzy logic, brain science, etc. to understand. Lain's understanding is poetic word combinations which has some value. Understanding of anything, has a beautiful deep fractal structure.
I agree with the "vastly more ignorant than not" part
yea but that's the baseline & applies for everyone. unproblematic. bloviating omnisolvers like iain add... what? do you honestly think that his books could be canon? i don't think so.
it's wildly onanistic yet sincere enough to acknowledge considerations and seemingly ineliminable states of affairs of our philosophical affordances that suggest that the ignorance-aware, fallibilist, empiricist, quietist stance i mention at the end of my rant destabilizes and dissolves any substantive, non-trivial conjecturing about nonempirical reality. the alleged over-and-above-something-more-something-different-transcendental-mattering-intrinsic-fundamental whatever—you know what i mean 😉, remains obscurely kept alive via nods to certain experiences and a metaphilosophy based on those experiences, but why would any experience evidence any particular speculative nonempirical explanation over any other? hence, vibes + hubris.
eg. saying that consciousness (?) is a phase of matter is just that. a slogan, a deepity to say. how specifically would this explain any particular relation between x brain states and experience? why isn't consciousness a lallanx of mattre? huge amounts of just using delicious utterances, bathing in custom-made philosophers' terms of art, esoteric words, without progress or creative problem solving. bombastic, stalling onanism.
I combine my experiences of: set theory, Virtual reality mathematics, meta-mathematics, Chaos theory, Number Theory, Surreal Numbers, LOF (Laws of Form, by g spencer brown), theoretical physics, philosophy of physics/mathematics, fuzzy logic, brain science, etc. to understand. Lain's understanding is poetic word combinations which has some value. Understanding of anything, has a beautiful deep fractal structure.
I suspect this has to be a spoof response produced through one of those postmodern content generators that were created in the aftermath of the Sokal affair. See https://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/
it's not. i suspect it may just be a skill issue in your parsing.
also see https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAmipLZU-eEIpZy1RZMb-Xj9PUpeoeOV6&si=aFQXwU4HVJuoPuQL and https://jdemeta.net/category/postmodernism/ (hermitix explaining pomo) for actually learning how postmodernism works.
it's written in a provocative manner, but i've clearly articulated my problems with iain's stuff.
Thank you for the reply. I fully concede my initial parsing of the response was met with failure to rapidly and easily follow your arguments.
And I fully concede I am not accustomed to reading postmodernesque.
But a multi-paragraph response without standard punctuation, peppered with words unlikely to be familiar to anyone outside of certain academic/niche circles, is perhaps not going to be an effective way of articulating a position in dialogical discussion with a general audience of mostly intelligent and interested and engaged readers/viewers.
So, with respect, I acknowledge you believe you have clearly articulated your problems with Iain’s work, but only for a very closed group of potential readers/viewers - who I suspect are not at all interested in engaging with Iain’s work, but only in dismissing it out of hand, because mockery and denegration of anything held up as traditional or valuable, are, from the links you provided, standard tools for anyone assuming the postmodern stance.
I grudgingly admire your evident commitment to the solipsistic nihilism of the postmodern position, and since it is literally impossible to convince or change the mindset of someone ideology, I can only say, “cherishit”
you're not making much sense with soundbites like 'solipsistic nihilism of the postmodern position'. i endorse neither of those three stances. also, idk what exactly you think was postmodernesque. i in fact never read original postmodern canon texts, only read secondary, mostly critical literature about it, since the signal: noise ratio in those works is skewed towards noise, and they're also more often than not unempirical, which i don't prefer.
i have no commitment to nihilism, solipsism, or postmodernism, although i do enjoy relentless attention to detail, going meta, and not just passively absorbing whatever some high status person says without inquiry. i do think that iain's latest work was useful for me and i did learn a lot, but it's far from a great philosophical work imho.
the videos i linked aren't bad faith. while some of those creators may approach anti-postmodern propaganda & bullshitting with derisive humor, they're not disingenuous, but actually properly referenced responses to and debunkings of people who smear a strawman version of postmodernism with zingy buzzphrases and poor, ahistorical analysis, eg. steven hicks' work.
I've been waiting for this!! Great podcast, some of the questions got really deep & beyond just the text of his books (I feel like McGilchrist has a habit of just retelling his books during podcasts, which is understandable but dissapointing). I appreciate you being so open about your struggles and how TMaHE helped you out of it. I also was at a lower point in my life (but not nearly as bad) when I first found TMwT, and it really helped me through that time & beyond. Despite your tiredness you were still plenty prepared!
Curt, I much appreciate the wonderful sincerity, openness, and depth/breadth of communication in the dialogue between you and lain. Many thanks to you both. To me, however, attributions to the left/right brain within reductive physicalism is better understood as instantiations of deeper ontic and epistemic principles -- not addressed. I'd like to explore a deeper ontology ('levels of nature') and a deeper epistemology (direct experience in natural 'higher states of consciousness') that modern science is beginning to glimpse (and both you and lain seemed to be on the verge of getting at) that is profoundly described (but frequently overlooked) in Veda. I'd like to suggest recent papers/books as a direction but first want to know how prefer this to be approached. With much respect, appreciation, and interest, RW Boyer (Bob)
RW Boyer
The One/Many problem is not a problem. LOF (Laws of Form) by g spencer brown helps understand this.
Excellent approach! It’s resonate very well. If interested see research of Itzhak Bentov & George G Meade called Gateway process
Left /right balance at 3.57cps