9 Comments

This piece contains the clearest expression of what it means to be human I have ever encountered. I am referring to your writing as I didn’t view any of the recordings. Thank you. I wish every philosopher, politician, economist, sociologist, priest, AI artificers, …hell, everyone who has ever looked up to the sky (or heaven) could value what you are expressing.

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Really enjoyed the discussion Matt. I’m a big fan of your wicked smart perspective! Especially, was also moved by the poem you read. I thoroughly enjoy your dialogues.

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Public intellectuals animated by the importance of proving that there is no value in the universe constitute an interesting subject for study !

"theorganism" seems to be a neologism that could be powerful... "auto-cosmology" is one that I had not seen and will have to look into.

I am currently enjoying the Cobb Institute course on Pomeroy's book "Marx and Whitehead", guided by the talented Kazi Shakti. Your thoughts on how materialism "makes itself true", and the terrible tug toward negative feedback loops, are compelling. Somehow this reminded me of the converse within Marx - that capitalism also contains the seeds of its own destruction. In Pomeroy's reading this is not merely a conclusion of political-economy but one of deep-seeded metaphysical necessity. I think perhaps materialism also can be seen to contain the seeds of its own destruction - the oh so hard part is the human destruction strewn in its path.

We must be patient of change, I suppose. But such patience has to somehow remain open to feeling the destruction and the suffering. Whitehead expressed the universality of such feeling. He also seems to have be a patient person and found a patient and fellow-suffering god to be a metaphysical necessity. We are together in that I think.

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Great article, Matt! Such an important topic and beautifully put.

Would be amazing to hear you in discussion with Dr. Nathan Jacobs, who has more of a traditional Orthodox Christian worldview. If you’ve never heard of him I’d highly recommend checking him out!

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Wonderful stuff brother, love it

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thanks for getting Wordsworth in my head!

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And of course real thanks goes to Charles Taylor and I reckon most goes to the peepal tree I was sitting under :)

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That makes me very happy that I helped!

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Not sure if others are seeing this glitch, but no matter how many times I try to correct it, Substack is inserting the Gafni/Harari video twice. The second embedded video should be Pascal and Dempsey in dialogue: https://youtu.be/Kbojcr-yhck?si=V4eupGsVo65neVcr

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