Consciousness, Lex Fridman and Smachtenberger

[AshvinP]

I may have shared this elsewhere, but there is a 3 part series of talks, titled 'Recovering the Sacred' between Vervaeke and Hall on JV's youtube channel that is very much about making the sacred salient to our everyday, prosaic life experience ... Part 1 should provide links to 2 and 3 ...

So I started listening to this discussion and it dawned on me what was frustrating me in the other Rebel Wisdom one - not just the lack of explicit spiritual discussion, but this push to be trailblazers in the "reinventio" of the sacred with a new conceptual system and new language - all the bells and whistles. For ex., when JH is talking about the creation of "supernatural" category, he is basically referring to the Cartesian and Kantian divides, but does not mention them. He is speaking about them like he just experienced a revelation and is struggling to find new words of expressing it to others. JV has some of those tendencies but not nearly as much, and as we saw in his BK discussion, he has no problem operating within the already established categories of philosophy.

I don't know if JH does that all the time, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it really takes me out of the discussion and makes me lose interest. In general, I think there is a lot of push to sideline traditional mythological categories and develop these new conceptual schemes in the "public intellectual" circles. Bret and Eric Weinstein do that to some extent as well. I think it's a risky move because those mythologies evolved for a reason and, while we shouldn't cling to their historical interpretations, the basic symbols and stories have the most meaningful impact on people. It would be good to see those retained and integrated with any new conceptual language, in the manner of a Steiner or Jung or Heidegger. Anyway, it's not a huge deal, and it is most pronounced for me in what I have heard from JH more than anyone else.

[Soul_of_Shu]

So I started listening to this discussion and it dawned on me what was frustrating me in the other Rebel Wisdom one - not just the lack of explicit spiritual discussion, but this push to be trailblazers in the "reinventio" of the sacred with a new conceptual system and new language - all the bells and whistles. For ex., when JH is talking about the creation of "supernatural" category, he is basically referring to the Cartesian and Kantian divides, but does not mention them. He is speaking about them like he just experienced a revelation and is struggling to find new words of expressing it to others. JV has some of those tendencies but not nearly as much, and as we saw in his BK discussion, he has no problem operating within the already established categories of philosophy.

I don't know if JH does that all the time, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it really takes me out of the discussion and makes me lose interest. In general, I think there is a lot of push to sideline traditional mythological categories and develop these new conceptual schemes in the "public intellectual" circles. Bret and Eric Weinstein do that to some extent as well. I think it's a risky move because those mythologies evolved for a reason and, while we shouldn't cling to their historical interpretations, the basic symbols and stories have the most meaningful impact on people. It would be good to see those retained and integrated with any new conceptual language, in the manner of a Steiner or Jung or Heidegger. Anyway, it's not a huge deal, and it is most pronounced for me in what I have heard from JH more than anyone else.

I know what you mean. That in the endeavour to conceive of a religion that's not a 'religion' and leave the bastardized, institutionalized baggage behind, if the mythos is also abandoned, it risks losing a lot of meaningful appeal for many. To this mind, the sacred is never not the sacred, and the mythos, while ancillary, is still an overlay, and can be revisioned. However, how efficacious that revision may be on a broad scale is an open question, and remains to be seen. What is paramount is the realization of the pervasiveness of the ever-present scared, so I tend to keep an open mind about whatever works for any given individual. I of course don't know JH intimately, but I intuit in him that his modality is working, as likewise I intuit that yours is too, and that is what counts. I can embrace you both equally in that mutual recognition.

[AshvinP]

So I started listening to this discussion and it dawned on me what was frustrating me in the other Rebel Wisdom one - not just the lack of explicit spiritual discussion, but this push to be trailblazers in the "reinventio" of the sacred with a new conceptual system and new language - all the bells and whistles. For ex., when JH is talking about the creation of "supernatural" category, he is basically referring to the Cartesian and Kantian divides, but does not mention them. He is speaking about them like he just experienced a revelation and is struggling to find new words of expressing it to others. JV has some of those tendencies but not nearly as much, and as we saw in his BK discussion, he has no problem operating within the already established categories of philosophy.

I don't know if JH does that all the time, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it really takes me out of the discussion and makes me lose interest. In general, I think there is a lot of push to sideline traditional mythological categories and develop these new conceptual schemes in the "public intellectual" circles. Bret and Eric Weinstein do that to some extent as well. I think it's a risky move because those mythologies evolved for a reason and, while we shouldn't cling to their historical interpretations, the basic symbols and stories have the most meaningful impact on people. It would be good to see those retained and integrated with any new conceptual language, in the manner of a Steiner or Jung or Heidegger. Anyway, it's not a huge deal, and it is most pronounced for me in what I have heard from JH more than anyone else.

I know what you mean. That in the endeavour to conceive of a religion that's not a 'religion' and leave the bastardized, institutionalized baggage behind, if the mythos is also abandoned, it risks losing a lot of meaningful appeal for many. To this mind, the sacred is never not the sacred, and the mythos, while ancillary, is still an overlay, and can be revisioned. However, how efficacious that revision may be on a broad scale is an open question, and remains to be seen. What is paramount is the realization of the pervasiveness of the ever-present scared, so I tend to keep an open mind about whatever works for any given individual. I of course don't know JH intimately, but I intuit in him that his modality is working, as likewise I intuit that yours is too, and that is what counts. I can embrace you both equally in that mutual recognition.

I appreciate it! His modality is definitely working and probably much better than mine in many ways. When they brought up the "tyranny of the propositional" [as opposed to poetic] and "3rd person perspective" of modern era, I shook my head vigorously in agreement. These are extremely important issues to bring to more people's attention, so I am glad they are participating in that process and seem to be gaining a larger following.