Trust requires an openness in us, an opening of the limited to the unlimited. The greater the opening in any given experience, (great art or a ritual in a Greek orthodox church) the deeper the potential of one's humanity participating in Infinity. As the Psalmist says "Deep calleth unto deep" (Psalms 42,7) Rituals have the potential for the reversal of agency.
I'm all for ritual and metaphysical engagement as long as the natural and hard sciences are not neglected, which tends to often be the trend amongst certain spiritual/religious/woo-woo types.
i have copied and pasted this into my notes, cuz i will reference it in the future ...
"I emphasized that truth requires something of us—not just cognitive assent but existential risk. It’s not static information waiting to be found, but something that changes us, and in turn, is co-created by us."
Endlessly fascinating stuff....Have you heard of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness? See: https://academic.oup.com/book/51668 I feel like Reber, Baluska and Miller put Margulis' assertion that cells are conscious on a firmer basis. They contend that all life is conscious at least down to the cellular level and it was in fact consciousness that allowed the first life forms to deal with the chaos of a rapidly changing planet. It would make sense that our consciousness is the latest form passed down through the long history of evolution.
Thank you for this beautiful conversation and all the threads you’ve pulled together here, Matthew. This theme keeps surfacing again and again. Perhaps, as you say, a bit of the algorithmic selection bias at play, but maybe also something deeper calling to be remembered.
This shift in biology toward a more process-relational, purposive, and even value-attuned metaphysics feels long overdue. Your articulation of truth as participation, where the knower is changed in the very act of knowing, is such a profound reorientation. It feels less like a conceptual stance and more like a way of being.
Grateful for the clarity and care you continue to bring to this unfolding revolution.
This is a beautiful weaving of ideas. However, I stumbled when you mentioned Donald Hoffman as a radical skeptic. I always think of him as a person revealing the ladder to Source via maths. I also know he has to work hard to get his work understood metaphysically. His conversation with John Vervake...Finding Source Using Maths on Curt Jaimangal channel is revealing of this struggle, and how he finds common ground with his skeptics. He is simply saying the ladder to the ULTIMATE Source, is a journey into infinity. He studies conscious AGENCY....surely participation, at every step, and learning about conscious agency is his inspiration. So I am confused as to why he is your straw man.
Hi Matt! I love your steadfast enthusiasm for a metaphysical revolution! You’ve even managed to inspire an old Boomeranian like me to dust off some old ideas whose time may have finally come, thanks to your prodding persistence, and inspiration.
Thus, I would love to talk with you about Arthur Young's Theory of Process, which sees any goal-oriented activity and human evolution itself as manifesting through 7 distinct stages on 4 levels of reality, the same pattern you find in Rudolf Steiner's evolutionary process.
I became friends with Arthur in Berkeley in 1981, and later that year, I taught the Physics and Chemistry blocks at the Garden City Waldorf High School where I integrated some of Arthur's process ideas into the curriculum.
Much more to discuss — like how he applied Aristotle’s 4 Causes to each of the 4 ontological levels of his process theory.
What I was trying to get at in that (admittedly broad-strokes) summary isn’t really about the most advanced work happening in niche areas of biology, but more about how certain ideas got absorbed into the mainstream through the popular science books written for non-specialists. A lot of what shaped public understanding of biology came from figures like Richard Dawkins, whose Selfish Gene really pushed a gene-centered, machine-like view of life. That story stuck.
But there’s a whole other side to 20th-century biology that doesn’t get told enough. Think general systems theory (like Bertalanffy), cybernetics, complexity science, and later on, evo-devo and niche construction theory. And of course Lynn Margulis. So even though the reductionist model dominated public discourse, organicism never actually went extinct, it just got sidelined.
on this matter, reference should be made to Iain McGlichrist "The Matter with Things" and all of Part lll of that book especially chapters 21 "The One and the Many" and 27 "Purpose Life and the Nature of the Cosmos". He quotes Nietzcshe “Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal. A parable.” and Whitehead “The teleology of the universe is directed to the production of beauty.” Enlightening.
“ Truth and trust share an etymological root, and I suggested that truth reveals itself only to those who are trustworthy—who have cultivated the virtues necessary for revelation. In this way, truth becomes more than a property of propositions; it becomes a relationship, a moral and spiritual practice, a path of transformation.”
Is it not commonplace for seekers to cultivate a structured discipline all the while sensing the good unreachable by direct intention?….. “like that slippery Christian grace unattainable by ardent direct pursuit, which taints her pursuer with the sin of pride.”
I have just begun “Once Upon a Time” by John Barth. A very funny and serious writer, who like all good writers writes of lethal Time.
Trust requires an openness in us, an opening of the limited to the unlimited. The greater the opening in any given experience, (great art or a ritual in a Greek orthodox church) the deeper the potential of one's humanity participating in Infinity. As the Psalmist says "Deep calleth unto deep" (Psalms 42,7) Rituals have the potential for the reversal of agency.
I'm all for ritual and metaphysical engagement as long as the natural and hard sciences are not neglected, which tends to often be the trend amongst certain spiritual/religious/woo-woo types.
i have copied and pasted this into my notes, cuz i will reference it in the future ...
"I emphasized that truth requires something of us—not just cognitive assent but existential risk. It’s not static information waiting to be found, but something that changes us, and in turn, is co-created by us."
👍🏼
Endlessly fascinating stuff....Have you heard of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness? See: https://academic.oup.com/book/51668 I feel like Reber, Baluska and Miller put Margulis' assertion that cells are conscious on a firmer basis. They contend that all life is conscious at least down to the cellular level and it was in fact consciousness that allowed the first life forms to deal with the chaos of a rapidly changing planet. It would make sense that our consciousness is the latest form passed down through the long history of evolution.
Thank you for this beautiful conversation and all the threads you’ve pulled together here, Matthew. This theme keeps surfacing again and again. Perhaps, as you say, a bit of the algorithmic selection bias at play, but maybe also something deeper calling to be remembered.
This shift in biology toward a more process-relational, purposive, and even value-attuned metaphysics feels long overdue. Your articulation of truth as participation, where the knower is changed in the very act of knowing, is such a profound reorientation. It feels less like a conceptual stance and more like a way of being.
Grateful for the clarity and care you continue to bring to this unfolding revolution.
wow, mind-blowing ideas!
So happy, thank you.
This is a beautiful weaving of ideas. However, I stumbled when you mentioned Donald Hoffman as a radical skeptic. I always think of him as a person revealing the ladder to Source via maths. I also know he has to work hard to get his work understood metaphysically. His conversation with John Vervake...Finding Source Using Maths on Curt Jaimangal channel is revealing of this struggle, and how he finds common ground with his skeptics. He is simply saying the ladder to the ULTIMATE Source, is a journey into infinity. He studies conscious AGENCY....surely participation, at every step, and learning about conscious agency is his inspiration. So I am confused as to why he is your straw man.
Fair. I do qualify my comment in the live talk, noting that I find his idea of conscious agents compelling.
Hi Matt! I love your steadfast enthusiasm for a metaphysical revolution! You’ve even managed to inspire an old Boomeranian like me to dust off some old ideas whose time may have finally come, thanks to your prodding persistence, and inspiration.
Thus, I would love to talk with you about Arthur Young's Theory of Process, which sees any goal-oriented activity and human evolution itself as manifesting through 7 distinct stages on 4 levels of reality, the same pattern you find in Rudolf Steiner's evolutionary process.
I became friends with Arthur in Berkeley in 1981, and later that year, I taught the Physics and Chemistry blocks at the Garden City Waldorf High School where I integrated some of Arthur's process ideas into the curriculum.
Much more to discuss — like how he applied Aristotle’s 4 Causes to each of the 4 ontological levels of his process theory.
Let me leave you with a page from his website
https://arthuryoung.com/about/the-theory-of-process/
Dave Sibbet gives an excellent summary here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781119203858.app1
What I was trying to get at in that (admittedly broad-strokes) summary isn’t really about the most advanced work happening in niche areas of biology, but more about how certain ideas got absorbed into the mainstream through the popular science books written for non-specialists. A lot of what shaped public understanding of biology came from figures like Richard Dawkins, whose Selfish Gene really pushed a gene-centered, machine-like view of life. That story stuck.
But there’s a whole other side to 20th-century biology that doesn’t get told enough. Think general systems theory (like Bertalanffy), cybernetics, complexity science, and later on, evo-devo and niche construction theory. And of course Lynn Margulis. So even though the reductionist model dominated public discourse, organicism never actually went extinct, it just got sidelined.
on this matter, reference should be made to Iain McGlichrist "The Matter with Things" and all of Part lll of that book especially chapters 21 "The One and the Many" and 27 "Purpose Life and the Nature of the Cosmos". He quotes Nietzcshe “Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal. A parable.” and Whitehead “The teleology of the universe is directed to the production of beauty.” Enlightening.
“ Truth and trust share an etymological root, and I suggested that truth reveals itself only to those who are trustworthy—who have cultivated the virtues necessary for revelation. In this way, truth becomes more than a property of propositions; it becomes a relationship, a moral and spiritual practice, a path of transformation.”
Is it not commonplace for seekers to cultivate a structured discipline all the while sensing the good unreachable by direct intention?….. “like that slippery Christian grace unattainable by ardent direct pursuit, which taints her pursuer with the sin of pride.”
I have just begun “Once Upon a Time” by John Barth. A very funny and serious writer, who like all good writers writes of lethal Time.
I think quantum physics is the bridge between science and spirituality.
The book, Biocentrism, is an excellent example of this. ♾️