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Speaker 1: And if it's true, if realism is true, and that

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somehow these structures are divine in nature, they originate from God.

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Whether you're a pantheist, or you're a theist, or you're

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a panentheist, you're a pagan, you're a Christian, you're some

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form of realist in this way, then what happens is

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that basic perception is already a mystical experience. So you

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want a mythologize world, you're already in it the moment

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you embrace realism. And now, the reason I think that's

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so important is because rather than saying, well, there's a

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mystical side where we think about the occult and all

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that sort of stuff, and then there's a materialist side,

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rationalist side, and you create a separate you treat them separately.

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I think the key is once you really embrace realism

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and you understand a realist metaphysic, you realize that it's

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all mystical. The world is mythologized. Yes, sure, it's haunted

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with spirits, angels, demons, God, all this sort of stuff.

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Yeah that's real. You're a spiritual being after life, all

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this sort of stuff. Sure, morality, all the rest. But

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even prior to that, just at the basic level of

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you existing in a structured way and you perceiving those structures,

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that basic level of existence is already mystical. And I

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think if you can grasp that now, reason can begin

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to come in and provide some guidance, some discernment right

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about you know, what are the structures of morality? What

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are the spirits I should be talking to and shouldn't

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be talking to? Right Reason can start to have that

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say that's been sort of pushed to the side without

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in any way nullifying the pursuit of the mystical.

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Speaker 2: So that's that would be my pitch.

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Speaker 3: This is Jonathan phel Welcome the Symbolic world.

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Speaker 4: Hello everyone, I am here. I'm back with Nathan Jacobs.

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Some of you follow my channel. I've seen him before.

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Nathan is one of the most fascinating people I know.

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He is a philosopher, he is a teacher. He is

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also an artist, very much in different mediums writing, you know,

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visual art. And so I thought that we would talk

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a little bit about this moment because Nathan has been

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working on some fiction projects and also still continuing to

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work on his philosophy, and it seems like as so

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many of us, a lot of creative people are kind

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of working towards reimagining and representing Christianity but also the

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ancient world in different ways.

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Speaker 3: I thought we could explore his.

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Speaker 4: Vision of realism, his vision of storytelling, and how that

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off is together.

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Speaker 3: So, Nathan, thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Jonathan, that's a great intro. Wow,

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I've flattered. I hope I live up to.

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Speaker 4: So it's but it's a tall order, like to talk

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about all that, you know, because you know, one of

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the things we've seen, and you know, you've been aware

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also of things like Michael Heiser and the Lord of

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Spears podcast, you know, the things that I'm doing, a

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lot of other stuff that's going around. You've been also

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part of that in some ways, you know, circling around

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around that circles. And what do you think is happening?

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I mean, what what is the change that's happening in

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people's mind that is making it possible for these types

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of stories to enter people's imagination again in a way

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that doesn't seem completely crazy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think there's several different things that are

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going on, and one of the one of these sort

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of things that first clue me into this, and I think,

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I mean, it's been a while since we had our

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last you know, sort of talk on your podcast. We

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talked before between them, but I think we talked maybe

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a little bit about becoming truly human and the work

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that I did on the religiously unaffiliated or the nuns, right,

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people with no religious affiliation. But like hearkening back to that,

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that was one of the first things that awakened me

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to an interesting trend in culture, which is that you know,

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so by way of context for anybody who's unfamiliar as

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a I did a documentary at some point years back

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related to the religiously unaffiliated. And I was asked to

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do that because some folks approached me and they were

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basically like, hey, you're a philosopher, you're a theologian, you're

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an artist. You also, at the time, I was a

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college professor. I've stepped away from that for filmmaking now,

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but you know, I'd also already been moving into filmmaking,

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and they're like, well, maybe you could do something related

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to this demographic to engage them to look at them.

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And so anyway, I ended up pitching this sort of

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odd documentary project of saying, well, yeah, let's look at

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that demographic, but let's humanize them, Let's let them tell

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their story, let's hear what's really going on with them,

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Let's put them in conversation with each other to get

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sort of the dynamics of the worldview and so on.

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But as part of doing that documentary, I ended up,

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you know, interviewing all these different you know, nuns right

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religious and again I should probably I should probably n

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n ees not like Catholic nuns, Orthodoxy.

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Speaker 2: It's like the worst branding it ever, is so bad.

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Speaker 3: Because everybody it's the opposite of each other.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's like, wait, nuns that don't believe in God?

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Like what? And so like no nuns as in no

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religious affiliation, it's none of the above on religion surveys.

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So these are not like Catholic or Orthodox nuns, right like,

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these are people who just don't identify with any specific religion.

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So anyway, and in doing the sort of initial interviews

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with those folks, there was this weird data point that

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didn't show up in the documentary, and it was one

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of the first things that awakened me to this sort

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of hunger for a re.

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Speaker 2: Mythologized world now.

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Speaker 1: And this sort of oddity that I'm referring to is

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that when I interviewed the nuns, what emerged was that

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all of them, ninety percent of them at least, believed

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in ghosts. So it was really sort of strange, right,

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because I think a lot of the general perception and

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maybe to an extent, my perception too before I really

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dealt into, you know, all these interviews, was that well,

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maybe what's happening is there's like this apologetic discussion going

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on between like Christian apologists and new atheists, and maybe

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the new atheists are winning, and so all these people

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are abandoning religion to become atheists, right, And that's what

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it is. And then when I interviewed all of these folks,

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you know, I did like sixty plus, you know, sort

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of pre screenings of different folks from all sorts of

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different places, backgrounds, whatever, and I was shocked to find

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that he just kept on coming up that they're like,

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oh yeah, ghosts, totally ghosts.

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Speaker 2: And I was like, huh, that's really weird.

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Speaker 1: And actually, I think the one that encapsulated it the

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most for me was that there was this one couple

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from New York that I was interviewing. I really wanted

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to have them in the documentary. It didn't work out,

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but they had been married for three years, and I

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was just going through my usual questions with them, like, oh,

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what was your upbringing?

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Speaker 2: Like, okay, were your parents religious? Did you go to church?

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Speaker 1: You know, these sorts of background sort of questions. And

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then I get to the point where I'm like, do

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you believe in God? And the husband's like, oh, absolutely,

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and the wife's like, no way. And then they looked

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at each other and they're like, what you do? You

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don't bring them And apparently they had been married married

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for three years and they never had a conversation about

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whether God exists, right, But I was like, oh, man, gosh, okay,

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well this is going to be a conversation when we're

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done here. I'm sure hopefully it didn't disrupt your marriage.

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But what was also the bigger oddity for me was

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that somehow, and I don't even remember how it emerged,

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ghosts came up, right, paranormal ghosts, and all of a sudden,

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the gal who was like, oh I don't believe in God, science, science, science,

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My apartment is haunted. I thought huh so, no God,

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but spirits, Okay, that's interesting. And then what I And

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this kept on happening again and again where it's like, oh, man,

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like these folks don't just believe in ghosts, They're like,

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I'm a sucker for ghost hunter shows, right like, or

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I'm into the paranormal. So it was like an enthusiasm.

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And then that's when I found I was like, is

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that just an odd sample? Like did I happen to

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find the sixty people?

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Speaker 2: But right?

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Speaker 1: But then I found the work of Clay Rutledge, who

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is a sociologist, and he did an entire book on

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this where he was talking about the fact that the

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folks who abandon religion were not abandoning it for a secular, materialist,

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atheist worldview. They were abandoning it largely for toying with

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the occult. And then I was looking at Pew Stats

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and Pugh was finding the same thing where they were

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finding that people who had abandoned religion were actually more

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likely than religious people to believe in ghosts or paranormal phenomena, which.

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Speaker 4: By the way, is important to mention that this is

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not something that's just happening now. It is something that's

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been happening from the beginning of the Enlightenment, and it's

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something that I've argued very much that there's a dark

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side to the Enlightenment that's there right from the outset

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and can be seen in all the seances, all the magnetism,

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all the Edward case, all that nonsense, nineteenth century materialism

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flipping into this weird esoteric kind of.

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Speaker 1: Culture that's you're absolutely right, like, so this is one

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of the things that's really bizarre that a lot of

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people don't pay attention to that you have like certain

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philosophers like Yaka Berm and people like that who are

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like sitting there like trying to talk with angels right

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like they're trying to contact the spiritual side. So that's

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sort of this weird sort of it's strange the way

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the myths, like the storytelling in our culture about the

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history of ideas of wolves right where it's like, you know,

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the story of the Enlightenment is typically that you had

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a bunch of like, yeah, you just got a bunch

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of backwater hicks who are dumb religious people who haven't

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decided to use.

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Speaker 2: Their mind in a while.

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Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of scientists who come along

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who are like, what if we poked in PROD stuff

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and then all of a sudden they became materialists atheists

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and all the religious stuff went away. And it's like,

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that's not the narrative at all, Like all those things

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are wrong about that arrative.

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Speaker 4: That Hegel reading Swedenborg and yes, and then and then,

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I mean there's so much dick cop trying to contact

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the Rosicrucians, Like there's all these examples of all these

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Enlightenment philosophers, you know, basically being attracted by kind of

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weird as.

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Speaker 3: Derek occult stuff.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, on August twenty seventh, we are going to start

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to ascend the mountain of purgatory. Richard and I continue

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on the second Dante class, so you can please go

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and sign up. You know, the first class was just

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an absolute blast and everybody really enjoyed it. So we're

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hoping that everybody will continue on the track with us.

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Speaker 5: And yes, so we're as as Jonathan said, we're starting

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August to twenty seventh. You can get the course now

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at Symbolic World Courses. There are payment plans and everything

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there to make it convenient for you. It's going to

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be incredible. Purgatorio is actually my favorite book of the

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whole comedy to teach. It's the one that most people

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when you're in school you start, you read Inferno. When

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that's all you read. If you read Dante at all

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in like high school or college, you probably only read Inferno.

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Purgatory is my favorite one to teach. It's the one

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that is kind of, you could say, in a certain sense,

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the most relevant to where many of us are in

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our Christian life. That is to say, Purgatory is about

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the purification, right, It's about the process of becoming saints,

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and so whereas the you know, Inferno is like about

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sort of rejecting sid and then Paradise is about what

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is what even is holiness?

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Speaker 2: And Paradise is the hardest.

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Speaker 5: One to teach. We are going to be doing it

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later this year. Paradise is the hardest one to seach though,

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because it's very hard to explain to.

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Speaker 2: Somebody exactly what it means to be holy.

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Speaker 5: But I think all of us can understand what it's

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like to try to become holy. So anyway, join us

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for Purgatorio. It's kind of be really awesome. All the

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juicy stuff is in inferno, you know, because like it's

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really fun to look at these sinners getting there you

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know what's coming to them or whatever. But Purgatorio is

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in many ways it's the most practical because it's it

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really hits us right we're at right now. So August

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to twenty seven of the folks, please please please come

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and join us for the class. You won't regret it.

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It'll be five amazing weeks of really getting deep into

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the question of what does it mean to be purified?

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Speaker 3: And I think you will enjoy it. So all right,

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we'll see there everybody.

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Speaker 2: So this is happening.

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Speaker 1: Like, so what I started to notice is that this

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is clearly happening, right. Pugh was noticing it, Rutledge was

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noticing it. I noticed it in my interviews, and so that

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was sort of the question, like what's going on and

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what you know? One of the things that I've argued,

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I've you know, done different talks and lectures related to

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the religiously unaffiliated, and part of part of my case

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of like how this started to evolve over time is

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that far from the sort of expectation that says, like, oh,

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there's a debate going on. God no God, God, no God,

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materialist world, meaningless world, whatever, and one side is winning.

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The way I've put it in the past is saying, like,

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I think what's happened is that that discussion has lost

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the audience. And what I mean is that that discussion

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if you look at this sort of standard apologetic like

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you look at Boomers generation apologetics, right, it's basically sort

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of rehashed Enlightenment discussions.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: You can find all these same arguments and Lacke and

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Barkley and Hume and whatever. It's just that debate rehashed

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and sort of popularized in our own culture. And so

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I was like, there's nothing new there. And I think

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the difference is that the sort of generation that started

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to move away from it is not an Enlightenment generation.

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They are a posts you know, Enlightenment generation, and so

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and I think part of what comes with that is

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that there is a movement toward what I'll call intuitions, right,

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not intuitions in the contient sense, there's some technical sense,

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but what I just mean is like they're going on instincts, right,

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They're going on these sort of moral sentiments, right, So

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in terms of morality, for example, they don't necessarily have

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a moral system.

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Speaker 2: They have vague.

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Speaker 1: Sentiments of what is right and wrong. Right when they

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talk about, you know, whether the world is meaningful, right,

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and they talk about karma faith.

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Speaker 2: They don't have a fully fleshed out metaphysic right.

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Speaker 1: They just have a sense that, you know, there's probably

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some purpose and they've seen coincidences.

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Speaker 2: Right, and things like that.

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Speaker 1: And so I think the thing is that they're operating

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not so much on an overtly rational analytic level and

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more on this sort of like chest level, this sort

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of thing. And I think one of the things that's

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interesting when you look at the stories of why they

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abandon religion, they are largely reflective of that. They're reflective

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of existential crisis. So oftentimes in interviews with unaffiliated folks,

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you're like, well, so when did you start to doubt

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or what happened? They'll talk about the problem of evil,

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But when they describe it, they're not describing the problem

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of evil, you know, And I mean that's no surprise.

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They're not trained philosophers. They don't know the difference between

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the problem of pain, problem of evil, right, the other problems.

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But what they describe is they're really describing the problem

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of divine hiddenness.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: What they're describing is, there was a crisis happening, and

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I wanted to know that God was there and that

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he cared. I wanted him to hear my prayers and

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show up and answered. I wanted him to address that.

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I wanted to make it. I wanted him to be palpable, right.

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I wanted his presence to be real and tangible, and

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he didn't. And so that's when I started doubting that

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he's even there now. The reason that's important is because, well,

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then what's the appeal of the paranormal. Well, the paranormal

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is that it's a spirit that tangibly shows up, right.

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So if I can have a Wiji board experience where

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I'm like this, there's something here talking to me that's

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giving to me the thing that I wanted from God

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that he didn't give me. If I could have a

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haunted house experience where I'm like, this place is haunted,

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there's something here, right, that spirit is giving me the

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thing that I wanted, which is that encounter with the newminas, right,

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that tangible encounter with something on the other side.

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Speaker 2: And that's also reflective of when you ask.

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Speaker 1: I would have these interviews and they'd be like, well,

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you know, I'd be open to God, but I want

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proof that exists, and ask what would constante proof? And

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it became very clear in the conversations. First of all,

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they didn't know what would constitute. And second of all,

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whatever it was, it wasn't analytic. Right if I walked

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them through the argument from contingency or the ontological argument

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or whatever, it wouldn't matter because it's all up here,

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and they're being driven by something that's more existential. They're

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being driven by these sort of intuitions. And so I think,

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what's to circle back to your question of what's going on.

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I think what's starting to emerge is there is this

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sort of break with the rational pursuit of reality for

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something that's more existential. And in that break, there's something

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wildly dissatisfying about a purely materialist, mechanical world of dead

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matter that's chaotically running into each other. And so there's

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this instinct, there's this intuition, this drive in the human

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heart that's saying like, Okay, I think there is such

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thing as good and evil. I'm not schematizing it, but

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I'm just sort of operating by moral sentiments.

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Speaker 2: That that's real.

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Speaker 1: I think things do happen for a reason, that there's

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probably is a story here, right. I don't have a set,

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you know, idea of what that means from a religious worldview,

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what happens after I die or anything like that, but

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I think there's meaningful things happening. And I think it

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is a spiritual place. And I'm a spiritual being because

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I have these spiritual moments, right, these moments of feeling

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like a spiritual person or having certain spiritual sentiments, right,

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that just come upon me when I see a sunrise

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or you know, you know, see a newborn baby or

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something like that, right, or watch a movie and it

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seems like, yeah, that sounds right, that this is a

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spiritual place. And I think this world is probably haunted, right,

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I think it's probably filled with spirits. And I think

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all that speaks to this this general trajectory that as

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reason is sort of losing hold. And I don't mean

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that as an insult, you know, I don't mean to

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suggest like, oh, you're a bunch of irrational crazy people, right,

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but as reason is not at the helm, right, and more,

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these intuitions are at the helm driving the ship there,

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and there's a growing dissatisfaction with the materialist, atheist, you know, scientism.

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What's starting to happen is what's manifesting are those innate

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human impulses to say the world is meaningful, it does

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there is something about it, right. All the longings for worship,

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all the longings for some kind of mystery, all the

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longings for the transcendent, all the longings for you know,

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connection are starting to manifest. And I think those are

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manifesting in this intrigue in the paranormal and the occult.

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But I will say, and you know, I will say,

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I think at this same time those instincts are at

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war in some ways.

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Speaker 2: There's an inner conflict.

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Speaker 1: With a lot of folks who still have been trained

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to think religion is naive, right, or to think that

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it's somehow superstitious or something like that. And so this

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is where I think, for example, you know, that's part

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of the reasons why you're starting to see strange things emerge,

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Like there's an intrigue with aliens, right, which satisfies the

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materialist worldview because they're organisms, right, if we're just envisioning

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them as from other planets. But yet at the same

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time there's a schematizing of it and a sort of

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treatment of it as if it's religious. Right, there becomes

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this fascination we you know, with it as something that

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you know, it takes on Messianic overtones, it takes on

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angels and demons overtones, it takes on you know, it takes.

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Speaker 4: On something, It becomes an explanation for that stuff you

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see it like you see people like Rogan who basically

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are now reinterpreting religious imagery in light of aliens, And

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so they'll say, you know, Ezekiel's wheels or flying saucers. Right,

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I'm sorry, it's just like, okay, it's if you know

387
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anything about mysticism, you're like, no, they're not flying saucers.

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But the desire to to basically to have a a

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a phenomena that comes from somewhere outside, but that can

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also be measured and experienced. So there's the continuation of

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materialism in there too, because what people want is like

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they want something that comes from the outside, but that

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also is is here, Like, is something that that that

394
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you can still experience but is weird and strange and

395
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and does kind of touch on that that aspect of

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the newminus uh if as long as you can fit

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it into your your worldview.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, well, I think so this is where this

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is where one of the things Rogan is a great

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example of this, right, And I think he's a great

401
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example of it because he embodies a lot of people, right,

402
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He embodies a lot of This is the zeitgeist of

403
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a large portion of people in our culture. And one

404
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of the things that I think is really fascinating is,

405
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you know, like William James talks about this whole idea

406
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of like live and dead options right in his Will

407
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to Believe, Right, He's just talking about that there's certain

408
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things that you go to a certain person of a

409
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certain mindset or whatever, and you pitch an idea, right,

410
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you suggest a premise, a claim, and he uses it's

411
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like electricity, it's like wires, right, like that some options

412
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will just immediately be live options. Yeah, that's viable, and

413
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some will be dead options and like, no, not viable

414
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at all. And James of course points out that we

415
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tend to confuse that with a rational assessment, when in

416
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fact it's a pre rational assessment, right. That has something

417
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to do with our priors that this is you know,

418
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a live option.

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Speaker 2: This is a dead option.

420
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Speaker 1: And I think you find a similar thing in the

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work of Peter Berger, the sociologists his book Rumors of Angels.

422
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He talks about which I recommend the first couple of

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chapters of the book and then you can stop reading

424
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because it goes off the railative of that. But you know,

425
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but it's but it's he talks about. He talks about

426
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this phenomena of you know, being a cognitive minority. And

427
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one of the things that he's talking about there is

428
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just the fact that you as a social like your

429
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rational animal, but you're still an animal, and specifically a

430
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social animal. And what that means is that a lot

431
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of what you know is derived just from the broader

432
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consensus of other people around you. And and so you

433
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are shaped by what your culture thinks is plausible or implausible,

434
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what it thinks is ridiculous or not and h and

435
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Peter Berger talks about the fact that you know for

436
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that reason, when you find yourself as a as a

437
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cognitive minority, right you you discover that you believe something

438
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that most people don't believe or that most people think

439
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is ridiculous. You go into a crisis of belief, not

440
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necessarily because you have new information about the idea that

441
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shows it to be irrational, but just because of your

442
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social instincts that says, you know, it constitutes a danger

443
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to be in the minority. And so he talks about,

444
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you know, how you spiral and you either abandon the belief,

445
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or you proselytize for the belief, or you just keep

446
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it and hide it. And he uses this example of

447
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you know, somebody coming over from another place where you

448
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know they all believe the stars determine your fate, and

449
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they get here and then they find out most people

450
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don't think that, and then they go into a crisis

451
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of belief about that. And he says, well, you might think, well,

452
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they should go into a crisis of belief because that's ridiculous.

453
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And he's like, yeah, but the problem is if we

454
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send you over to their culture, you'll go into a

455
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crisis belief for the opposite reason. And he talks about

456
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the phenomena of anthropologists going native because they have that

457
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sort of experience where they land in a foreign culture

458
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and all of a sudden they abandon their own beliefs

459
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for or at least they're very tempted to abandon their

460
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own beliefs to the belief of the culture. Now, the reason,

461
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and I think that's the reason I sort of go

462
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off on that tangent is because I think that a

463
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lot of times folks like you, Rogan, they tend to

464
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confuse those pre rational inclinations, right, because that's pre rational.

465
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That has to do with your cultural context, it has

466
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to do with those influence. And Burger's point is that

467
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there's something pre rational, like you actually need to engage

468
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in that next level of rational assessment to say, well,

469
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is it ridiculous or is it not? Because it's actually

470
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not just feeling that somehow it's ridiculous, feeling that it's

471
00:25:38,799 --> 00:25:42,720
somehow implausible. Is it actually a rational assessment? It's a

472
00:25:42,759 --> 00:25:45,559
pre rational assessment, So it doesn't actually tell you anything

473
00:25:45,559 --> 00:25:48,559
about the viability of the belief. Reason has to have

474
00:25:48,599 --> 00:25:54,839
it say. But oftentimes people confuse just plausibility or palatability

475
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,440
with truth and falsehood as if it's a rational assessment.

476
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,119
And so it's interesting because with somebody like Rogan, it's

477
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:06,200
obvious that when God comes up as an explanation, Rogan

478
00:26:06,319 --> 00:26:10,200
has sort of materialists, you know, tendencies that it's like

479
00:26:10,319 --> 00:26:12,759
I don't know God, I mean, but couldn't it be

480
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:13,440
something else?

481
00:26:13,559 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 4: Right?

482
00:26:13,799 --> 00:26:16,559
Speaker 1: Like it just it's it's one of those things that's

483
00:26:16,599 --> 00:26:18,920
a dead option, as James puts it, or it's just

484
00:26:19,039 --> 00:26:22,119
it doesn't on that pre rational level, it doesn't resonate

485
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,119
with him. But then you'll quite literally here, you know,

486
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,279
well we'll talking about you know, humans are so far evolved,

487
00:26:29,279 --> 00:26:32,799
it couldn't possibly be that we just sort of evolved naturally.

488
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 3: Therefore aliens aliens.

489
00:26:35,039 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: Yes, right, And the question is like, okay, so why

490
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,720
on Earth would the aliens thing be more plausible than

491
00:26:43,799 --> 00:26:47,319
the God thing? Right, because the entire argument is just

492
00:26:47,519 --> 00:26:50,559
unintelligence puts you here, yeah, right, And I think the

493
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,519
answer is if you have a materialist instinct, if you

494
00:26:54,559 --> 00:26:59,119
have a materialist impulse, then offering an organism right like

495
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:00,839
this is actually it's same.

496
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:01,839
Speaker 3: With the simulation theory.

497
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 4: This whole simulation theory is like a really elaborate attempt

498
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:11,319
to replace God with some like some mechanism of intelligibility

499
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,359
that that has that has accounted for the parameters of

500
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:20,319
this world without without it being a transcendent you know, uh,

501
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,720
the source of all things. Like it's like this weird,

502
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:28,119
this weird desire to create a materialist explanation for for

503
00:27:28,319 --> 00:27:29,519
for the parameters of our world.

504
00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 1: It's pretty right, right well, and and and it's also

505
00:27:32,519 --> 00:27:34,960
like even certain things like just the general sort of

506
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:40,079
scientism right of our culture, where really science, I mean

507
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:44,279
science has been and I think to a large degree

508
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,720
still remains the mythology of our culture, right, Like it's

509
00:27:48,839 --> 00:27:51,960
you know, evolution is the mythology of our you know,

510
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,680
of how our world you know, came to be. And

511
00:27:55,039 --> 00:27:58,160
you know, the scientists are the priests class who can

512
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,440
peer behind the veil and mysteries that are beyond the

513
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,319
rest of us to understand. And so if there's an

514
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,799
authority left, it's them and all these sort of things.

515
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,559
I think there is sort of an extrapolation of science

516
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,119
into this sort of essentially a religion of sorts for

517
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:17,079
our culture. But when you play that out, you can

518
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,279
start to see those priors start to emerge. So for example,

519
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,640
like with you know, dark matter, right, you'll end up

520
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,759
hearing the premise that it's like, well, there's this missing

521
00:28:25,799 --> 00:28:29,240
mass problem, you know, based on you know, the amount

522
00:28:29,279 --> 00:28:32,160
of mass that's there. It's things shouldn't move like this,

523
00:28:32,279 --> 00:28:35,279
so they're moving the wrong way. So it must be

524
00:28:35,839 --> 00:28:41,240
that there is this invisible, undetectable mass that's moving them differently.

525
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,559
Now the thing is like everybody goes, oh, yes, yes, yes, okay,

526
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,200
very good. But if I gave all the same premises

527
00:28:48,319 --> 00:28:50,279
and I was like, the problem is like, based on

528
00:28:50,319 --> 00:28:52,880
the amount of mass that's there, those bodies shouldn't move

529
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,319
that way, and therefore there must be an invisible force.

530
00:28:56,359 --> 00:29:00,400
I'll call them angels that are moving them differently than

531
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,039
they would just on their own.

532
00:29:02,039 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 2: If it was unguided masks.

533
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,759
Speaker 1: People would go, that's stupid angels, that's ridiculous. And the

534
00:29:07,759 --> 00:29:11,079
only difference between the two arguments is that one sounds

535
00:29:11,119 --> 00:29:14,799
more science. Yeah, because I said dark matter, because.

536
00:29:14,599 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 4: He's like, well, we'll use the word angels, right, And

537
00:29:18,119 --> 00:29:20,799
so it's it's so hilarious because I've been playing with that.

538
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:22,440
I mean, I know if you followed it a little bit,

539
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,920
because you know, a lot of COGSI people are starting

540
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:30,240
to talk about transpersonal agency. So they're starting to talk

541
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,400
about the the perception that we see that there are

542
00:29:33,599 --> 00:29:37,160
certain agencies that are beyond the individual that act and

543
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,960
constrain the behavior of individuals.

544
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,039
Speaker 3: You know, it's like a traditional Christian we know that,

545
00:29:43,359 --> 00:29:43,559
you know.

546
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:45,319
Speaker 4: And so then I've been i mean like pushing people

547
00:29:45,359 --> 00:29:47,039
to say, well, let's just use the word that the

548
00:29:47,119 --> 00:29:49,519
old people used. Angel people used the word, they just

549
00:29:49,519 --> 00:29:53,839
say angels and demons. Yeah, And then like some people

550
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,319
freak out and they like, oh, you know, you just

551
00:29:56,359 --> 00:29:58,960
bring your superstitions into it. And then other people will

552
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:00,640
play along and people are like, oh, no, you're right,

553
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:04,240
like this is actually a good way to understand how

554
00:30:04,279 --> 00:30:07,039
the ancients were thinking. I think about it reverse. I

555
00:30:07,039 --> 00:30:09,319
think they knew what they were talking about. It was

556
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:11,400
this kind of bloh blah blah. But we're just trying

557
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,640
to figure it out. Let's use their schemes to help

558
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,799
understand our idea of what trans personal agency is.

559
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

560
00:30:17,519 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: Absolutely, no, I remember I was. I haven't gone deep

561
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,519
into that, but I do remember just reading an article

562
00:30:22,559 --> 00:30:26,119
recently and I had the same thought where I'm going like, so,

563
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,000
you mean like basically there are gods.

564
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:34,079
Speaker 3: What you're saying, So.

565
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:38,799
Speaker 1: You're saying that we're open systems that seemed to be

566
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,519
interacting with other invisible agents, you know, and that we're

567
00:30:42,559 --> 00:30:46,440
porous right on on a level. So yeah, no, that

568
00:30:46,519 --> 00:30:49,039
sounds familiar. I've read a few texts.

569
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 4: Something like that in every single culture, in every single

570
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,480
you know, part of the world. From the beginning of time,

571
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,160
we had this idea about you know, these these transpersonal agents.

572
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:01,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely a fascinating time.

573
00:31:01,839 --> 00:31:05,799
Speaker 4: So so basically, it seems as if a lot of

574
00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:08,519
this is breaking down right now in many ways, you know,

575
00:31:08,559 --> 00:31:10,839
in some ways, at least to me, it seems like

576
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,160
it's breaking down in dark ways, like the interest in

577
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,240
the occult, interest in the you know, the constant resurgence

578
00:31:19,279 --> 00:31:22,240
of all this kind of witchcraft imagery and satanic imagery.

579
00:31:22,519 --> 00:31:25,079
You know that that is usually ironic, but is nonetheless

580
00:31:25,119 --> 00:31:28,920
manifesting some some real pattern behind it. Uh. And and

581
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,559
at the same time, the the manner in which a

582
00:31:32,599 --> 00:31:37,720
lot of the social the new social let's say, structures

583
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:43,839
are represented religiously. So environmentalism is often represented in very

584
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,720
religious term. A lot of the rainbow stuff also, you know,

585
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,599
the trans is sacred thing that we've been hearing, and

586
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,319
the same way, and the environmental stuff especially like they

587
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:55,759
literally will use the word gaya and mother Earth to

588
00:31:55,839 --> 00:31:58,240
talk about their environmental concerns.

589
00:31:58,279 --> 00:32:01,279
Speaker 3: And so know what do you see what do you

590
00:32:01,319 --> 00:32:05,759
see moving forward? Like how how do you navigate all

591
00:32:05,839 --> 00:32:07,240
through all that? Let's see what are some of the

592
00:32:07,279 --> 00:32:08,160
decisions you've made.

593
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll admit that I, you know, even though

594
00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:16,359
I was, I'm very sympathetic to the religiously unaffiliated on

595
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,720
multiple levels, right because I went through Anybody who knows

596
00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:22,640
my story, whether it's because of the documentary I did

597
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:28,119
becoming truly human or you know, because they've seen interviews

598
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,559
me with me or whatever, they know that I went

599
00:32:30,599 --> 00:32:35,599
through a whole long philosophical religious exploration journey.

600
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:36,799
Speaker 2: Right. I was in art school.

601
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: I was in crisis about you know, these big questions

602
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,440
about meaning and purpose and after life and all this

603
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,319
sort of stuff. And so I left art school in

604
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,559
order to study philosophy and religion. I became very much

605
00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:52,400
an opponent of Christianity, or Christianity as I knew it,

606
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,480
which was all Western Christianity. And eventually that's you know,

607
00:32:55,559 --> 00:32:58,839
led me down the road discovering Eastern Orthodoxy much later

608
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,519
and so on. So folks who have are familiar with

609
00:33:02,519 --> 00:33:05,000
me know I went through that journey. But also that

610
00:33:05,079 --> 00:33:11,279
journey for me was highly rational, right, Like I was

611
00:33:11,359 --> 00:33:15,119
not somebody who toyed with the occult. I was fascinated,

612
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,200
like I was fascinated with the spiritual world. There was

613
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,359
definitely a longing for ancient religion, right, Like, that was

614
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,519
one of the things that I've talked about that, you know,

615
00:33:23,559 --> 00:33:26,319
there was this recognition that the ancient world seemed to

616
00:33:26,319 --> 00:33:28,319
have a connection with the spiritual world in a more

617
00:33:28,359 --> 00:33:32,200
palpable way, and that didn't seem reflective of contemporary religion.

618
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,480
I thought that was gone and debt until I discovered

619
00:33:34,519 --> 00:33:38,759
Eastern Orthodoxy and like. And so there was definitely that

620
00:33:38,799 --> 00:33:42,079
sort of longing there. But admittedly, so much of my

621
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,880
journey was up here, right It was me studying the

622
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,240
history of ideas, me going backwards from you know, into

623
00:33:48,279 --> 00:33:52,279
ancient philosophy and medieval philosophy and contemporary philosophy. You know,

624
00:33:52,359 --> 00:33:54,960
conentlive and is all these sorts of things. And so

625
00:33:55,039 --> 00:33:58,400
there's no doubt that while I can identify with a

626
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,440
lot about the religiously and a film in terms of

627
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,720
the questions, the objections they had to Western Christianity, some

628
00:34:05,759 --> 00:34:09,079
of their broad brushstrokes in terms of intuitions about the world,

629
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,920
I can't personally on that level identify with, you know,

630
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,280
the sort of wandering into the occult and just being

631
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,679
led by intuitions because I'm a highly rationalist person, right

632
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:21,519
I'm an artifact of the Enlightenment.

633
00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:23,119
Speaker 2: I don't belong here, Jonatha.

634
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:31,639
Speaker 1: But I think thankfully that that has offered a certain

635
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,079
level of insight of what I think is is a

636
00:34:34,119 --> 00:34:38,320
bit of this missing ingredient in the trajectory that's happening

637
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,000
right now. Because I don't think it's all bad, right like,

638
00:34:41,119 --> 00:34:44,039
I think that's actually a really good thing, that there

639
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:49,159
is this movement toward Well, we can't stop worshiping, we

640
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:53,800
can't stop seeking the mysterious, the mystical. We have a

641
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,719
longing for something transcendent. We have a longing for a

642
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:01,360
mythologized world. I think those things aren't just empty, vague longings.

643
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,559
I think they're there for a reason, just like the

644
00:35:04,599 --> 00:35:07,719
reason we hunger for food, right we hunger for the transcendent,

645
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,239
because there is such a thing as the transcend it.

646
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,360
I think I as somebody who am so I'm a

647
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,480
big advocate of properly functioning faculties arguments, right Like, I

648
00:35:18,519 --> 00:35:23,519
think basically, if you become skeptical about the reliability of

649
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:26,800
your faculties, you have no place to go. And so epistemologically,

650
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,519
I think it's important that you start from the presumption

651
00:35:29,679 --> 00:35:33,800
that your faculties are functioning properly, unless you have some

652
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,960
specific reason to doubt. Otherwise you're colorbline or something like that.

653
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,559
But your faculties are functioning properly, and their purpose is

654
00:35:40,599 --> 00:35:43,639
to tell you true things about the world. Now, usually

655
00:35:43,639 --> 00:35:47,760
when people believe that, they start to believe, well, I

656
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:49,840
should be an empiricist, right, That's why I don't believe

657
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,760
in any of the gods stuff or the ghost stuff

658
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,559
or things like that. That's why just my five senses.

659
00:35:55,119 --> 00:35:56,880
But the fact of the matter is that once we

660
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,719
start to take seriously the idea that our faculties are

661
00:36:00,159 --> 00:36:03,360
truth telling, a lot more than just the senses open

662
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:07,079
up the fact that we do have a sense that

663
00:36:07,159 --> 00:36:09,840
there is such a thing as right and wrong, and

664
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,519
we have this thing called conscience that just detects it right,

665
00:36:13,599 --> 00:36:16,440
tells us something true about the world that an empiricist

666
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,920
can't grasp. I mean, that's Hume attacked, you know, sort

667
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,840
of moral reasoning precisely because he was an empiricist. And

668
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,880
so it's like, but the fact of the matter is,

669
00:36:27,119 --> 00:36:30,280
I presume that conscience is not a malfunction. I presume

670
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,400
it's telling us true things about the world, and in

671
00:36:32,519 --> 00:36:35,320
like manner, I think the sense of the numinis just

672
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:39,239
like Rudolph Auto argued against Emmanuel Kant, right, Rudolph Auto

673
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,840
had suggested that CONT's assessment of psychology and of our

674
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,519
faculties was too limited because it left out the numinus.

675
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,760
It left out this universal human experience of you know

676
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,800
what Auto would call the holy right, the idea of

677
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,960
the holy But there's this broader sense that we as

678
00:36:56,039 --> 00:36:59,719
human beings, all have this intuition that the world is haunted.

679
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 3: Right.

680
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: I like to say that everybody believes in ghosts, even

681
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,679
the hardman nateed theist who says he doesn't because if

682
00:37:06,679 --> 00:37:09,079
you lock him in the abandoned insane asylum at night,

683
00:37:09,119 --> 00:37:11,000
he's scared. And it's not because he thinks a hobo

684
00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:13,360
lives there. And so he can try to reason that

685
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:16,639
away and say, well, it's an evolutionary defect, YadA, YadA, YadA.

686
00:37:16,639 --> 00:37:18,800
But the fact of the matter is it's there, right,

687
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:19,880
he's suppressing it.

688
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 2: It's there.

689
00:37:20,519 --> 00:37:23,679
Speaker 1: It is this universal human thing, and I think we

690
00:37:23,679 --> 00:37:26,239
should take that seriously as an intuition that tells us

691
00:37:26,599 --> 00:37:29,639
there is something behind the veil, right, that that's a

692
00:37:29,679 --> 00:37:33,639
real thing, and so and all of that sort of

693
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,360
So all of that is to say that I think

694
00:37:36,559 --> 00:37:41,280
the overly rationalistic approach that disregards these sort of more

695
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,119
intuitive things that are driving a lot of the nuns

696
00:37:44,519 --> 00:37:46,719
is bad. I think it's a good thing that people

697
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,000
are starting to get in touch with that, that they're

698
00:37:49,079 --> 00:37:52,400
hungering for the numinus, they're taking it seriously, that they're

699
00:37:52,519 --> 00:37:56,280
sort of taking seriously moral sentiments and things like that. Now,

700
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,400
I think there may be there is I think there

701
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,880
is an over direction in the sense that it's all

702
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,400
sentiment without reason, and so both are dangerous. Right, if

703
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,000
you over emphasize rationalism, if you overemphasize reason, you just

704
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:13,840
miss things. Right, There's just certain things that have to

705
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:19,119
be intuited or experienced, right, they can't be broken down analytically,

706
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:24,480
and obviously, as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I would well,

707
00:38:25,039 --> 00:38:26,480
I don't even have to appeal to that.

708
00:38:26,639 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 2: Right.

709
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:31,159
Speaker 1: Let me just say, if I were, you know, doing metaphysics, right,

710
00:38:31,559 --> 00:38:36,440
Aristotle's definition of matter where it's pure potentiality. You know,

711
00:38:36,559 --> 00:38:40,119
Aristotle defines matter as something that you know is just

712
00:38:40,199 --> 00:38:42,159
that it's just the potential to be a thing.

713
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:44,079
Speaker 2: And so when we start to talk.

714
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: About what matter is at its base, we have to

715
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,159
get rid of all particular properties. We can't think of

716
00:38:49,199 --> 00:38:51,840
it as a particular object. And then what happens is

717
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,039
reason starts to get frustrated because it's like, well, you're

718
00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:56,559
getting rid of all the things that I hold on to, right,

719
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,000
all the things I think of. And the answer is yes, right,

720
00:38:59,079 --> 00:39:02,159
it's in some ways neth reason, But that doesn't mean

721
00:39:02,199 --> 00:39:04,960
it's not real, right like, there is a good reason

722
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:07,760
to think it's there. Similarly with God, right like, people

723
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,360
tend to get flustered when they start to hear this

724
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,199
language of God being beyond being or something like that,

725
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,039
or infinite, and they're like, well, what am I supposed

726
00:39:15,079 --> 00:39:17,679
to think of? Because I think of small, finite objects.

727
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,920
And that's a good question. But that frustration of the

728
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,079
mind doesn't mean that God's not there. It just means

729
00:39:23,079 --> 00:39:25,920
that there are things above and below, you know, the

730
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,079
confines of reason. And so I think the problem is

731
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,079
if you end up just taking a pure analytic worldview,

732
00:39:32,119 --> 00:39:35,760
you ineverably have a truncated worldview because analysis can only

733
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,000
get you so far. There are things outside the boundary

734
00:39:38,079 --> 00:39:41,039
lines of it. But I think at the same time,

735
00:39:41,599 --> 00:39:46,039
if you're all intuition, it's just moral sentiment, right, It's

736
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,800
just vague pursuit of the numinus without any sort of

737
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,559
reason bringing it into check. You have an equally lobsided

738
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:57,679
worldview right now, I think you know. Now, So this

739
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,679
might sound like where I'm going is saying, well, so

740
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,440
I think it's good that we have a mythologized worldview,

741
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:07,159
but we should bring reason into the mix.

742
00:40:07,599 --> 00:40:08,639
Speaker 2: I suppose that's true.

743
00:40:08,679 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: I would say something like that, But I actually think

744
00:40:12,079 --> 00:40:16,159
reason itself is in some ways mystical, right is in

745
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,880
some ways divine, And I think what needs to happen

746
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:21,960
is that people need to begin to look at it,

747
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,280
you know, through that lens. So I'm a big advocate

748
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,840
of realism. After I did all of my all of

749
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,239
my sort of philosophical study and things like that, one

750
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,559
of the convictions that I came to was that all

751
00:40:33,639 --> 00:40:36,280
of the history of ideas, one or at least one

752
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,880
useful way of looking at the history of ideas is

753
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,000
to say that all the history of ideas is just

754
00:40:42,599 --> 00:40:45,639
it's just the story of two roads, you know, two

755
00:40:45,679 --> 00:40:48,480
different answers to one question, and that one question is

756
00:40:48,519 --> 00:40:52,000
the question of realism. So for those who are unfamiliar,

757
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,199
realism really is just it recognizes this that you know,

758
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,440
you and I and every other human being from the

759
00:40:59,519 --> 00:41:04,679
moment we you know, I can speak the moment, we

760
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:09,880
are self aware. We think in terms of groups.

761
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,079
Speaker 2: Right. Well, little kids are like, you.

762
00:41:13,079 --> 00:41:15,679
Speaker 1: Know, mommy, what animal is that? And they're not asking

763
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:17,760
who it is, They're asking what right, They're asking for

764
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:22,239
a species of thing, right, And.

765
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 4: That's what exactly the children are trying to do is

766
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:28,360
to is to be able to to categorize or bring

767
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:33,320
things together in the right analogy so that the right communion,

768
00:41:33,639 --> 00:41:36,480
so that they can then distinguish, like you said, groups

769
00:41:36,519 --> 00:41:40,199
because people don't realize that you're there, everything is a group.

770
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,440
Like everything that you can perceive in the world is

771
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:43,400
already a group.

772
00:41:43,679 --> 00:41:44,199
Speaker 2: That's right.

773
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: That's right, Right, chairs, balls, fears like like like yeah,

774
00:41:51,159 --> 00:41:54,360
like all that sort of stuff. Right, We think in

775
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,559
terms of groups. So the big question with realism is

776
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:04,119
you know why, right? The question is when the mind

777
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:10,199
does that, is it abstracting from the world or identifying

778
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:11,760
in the world or whatever it is?

779
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:12,039
Speaker 2: Right?

780
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:16,519
Speaker 1: Is there something out there are those structures actually out

781
00:42:16,519 --> 00:42:20,119
there and reflective of the way the world is. And

782
00:42:20,159 --> 00:42:24,239
if so, the answer is you're realist because they're real, right,

783
00:42:25,119 --> 00:42:28,679
or is it all just sort of chaotic happenstance, you know,

784
00:42:29,039 --> 00:42:34,920
amorphous matter, and the mind is inventing mental fictions in

785
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,480
order to group and categorize and interpret stuff that really

786
00:42:38,559 --> 00:42:40,599
isn't you know, organized in the first place.

787
00:42:40,639 --> 00:42:43,079
Speaker 3: It's creating between the two.

788
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 1: Right, right, And so if you say that, then you're

789
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,159
nominalists right from the Latin nomen meaning these are just

790
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,719
names that the mind is coming up with and projecting

791
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:55,000
and creating structures and organizations. And I think really in

792
00:42:55,079 --> 00:42:58,159
some ways, and I won't I won't go into it here,

793
00:42:58,159 --> 00:42:59,760
but I think in some ways that's the history of

794
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,159
ida is right. Look at you look at the rise

795
00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:05,400
of empiricism and modernity and everything that follows after that.

796
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,079
It's just exploring the nominalist roads, that's what it's doing.

797
00:43:10,519 --> 00:43:13,760
Whereas prior to that, the Medievals, the Ancients, you know,

798
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:19,159
that's the realist road, people like Socrates and Plato, even Pythagorasts,

799
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,639
you know, and then into the Medievals, the Jews, the Christians,

800
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,239
they were realists. And so once you're a realist, once

801
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:28,440
you're on the road of realism, which I embrace because

802
00:43:28,519 --> 00:43:32,000
I believe in properly functioning faculties, right, because if my

803
00:43:32,079 --> 00:43:35,000
faculties are aimed at tryelling me true things about the world.

804
00:43:35,079 --> 00:43:37,519
And one of the most basic things that it does

805
00:43:37,639 --> 00:43:40,840
is say that's a table, that's a chair, that's a human,

806
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,760
that's a cat. Right, if that's central to all thinking

807
00:43:45,119 --> 00:43:49,480
and reasoning, right, And I say reasoning because logic is

808
00:43:49,519 --> 00:43:52,400
based on groups. You can't engage in logic without groups.

809
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,800
So if that's what you know, all thinking and reasoning does,

810
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:01,480
and I presume them I thinking and reasoning is aimed

811
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,360
at a truth telling I have to presume at the

812
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,719
outset realism right now, the thing is realism naturally starts

813
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:11,199
to raise other questions like well, why are those structures there?

814
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,119
And one of the things that's most fascinating to me

815
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,320
is that realism. One of the ways of framing the question,

816
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,199
rather than the realist nonominalist way I just framed it,

817
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:25,920
is to say, does mind emerge out of matter as

818
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,079
a product of it after the fact?

819
00:44:29,119 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 2: Right?

820
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: Or is mind in some ways prior to matter structure

821
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,400
and giving its structure an organization, yeah, constraining it definitely, yeah, yeah,

822
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,800
And I think the fact of the matter is there

823
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:45,000
is no way of saying if you're going to be

824
00:44:45,039 --> 00:44:48,320
a materialist, an atheist, anomalist, you have to say that

825
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,239
mind is sort of an emergent property, right, that somehow

826
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:56,000
the matter just sort of evolved, the chaotically developed over time,

827
00:44:56,079 --> 00:44:59,159
you get complex organisms that eventually become conscious, and you

828
00:44:59,199 --> 00:45:02,360
have to make it a produ matter. But once you

829
00:45:02,559 --> 00:45:05,000
and so, once you say that, then it makes sense

830
00:45:05,039 --> 00:45:06,800
that you would have to say that mind is also

831
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,320
imposing all these structures because those structures we're describing our

832
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:17,719
mental structures, right, ideas, you know, rules, principles, logic, order.

833
00:45:18,039 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 2: You know.

834
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:22,280
Speaker 1: And and yet if you're a realist and you're saying, well, no,

835
00:45:23,159 --> 00:45:28,000
order and groups and structures are just there, right, they're

836
00:45:28,039 --> 00:45:30,960
part of the fabric of reality, then you actually have

837
00:45:31,039 --> 00:45:34,280
to suggest the opposite. You have to suggest that somehow

838
00:45:35,039 --> 00:45:38,199
the principles of mind and of ideas and of reason

839
00:45:38,559 --> 00:45:43,280
are there at the foundations, giving structure to reality. And

840
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:45,360
once you say that, now you have to say, well,

841
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:47,920
then that means that the world emerges from something like

842
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,440
a mind, and now I'm back to something like God,

843
00:45:51,639 --> 00:45:52,679
at least something god like.

844
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:53,079
Speaker 2: Now.

845
00:45:53,119 --> 00:45:55,679
Speaker 1: The reason I think this is important is because what

846
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:58,039
that means is once you look at the world that way,

847
00:45:58,119 --> 00:46:02,000
whether you're looking at it through like plates realism, you know,

848
00:46:02,159 --> 00:46:08,920
or Aristotle's realism or Filo of Alexandria's Jewish realism, or

849
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:12,480
you know, Gregory Ivniss's Christian realism, right, whatever it is,

850
00:46:13,599 --> 00:46:18,519
what happens is that knowledge and reason becomes inherently mystical.

851
00:46:20,119 --> 00:46:23,000
That as I look out and I recognize a structure,

852
00:46:23,039 --> 00:46:28,119
I recognize that's Jonathan is human, right, Okay, got it?

853
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:34,880
I am in some ways abstracting, apprehending, you know, partaking

854
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:36,800
in a divine idea.

855
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:37,119
Speaker 2: Right.

856
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:40,639
Speaker 1: There is something inherently mystical just about the fact that

857
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,199
the mind that gives structure in order to the world

858
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,320
is something that my mind either is a is a

859
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,480
spark of if I'm a pagan like Stoic, right, or

860
00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:53,239
is an image of if I'm a Jew or a Christian,

861
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,519
and that that image I'll go with the image since

862
00:46:57,599 --> 00:47:02,760
I'm an Orthodox Christian, you know, is is apprehending something

863
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:04,519
that originates from the divine mind.

864
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 2: Just in the active perception.

865
00:47:07,159 --> 00:47:09,119
Speaker 1: And I say, even in the active perception, you don't

866
00:47:09,119 --> 00:47:10,760
even have to go as far as reason. Right when

867
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,599
I look out, right now, I look out and I see, okay,

868
00:47:14,679 --> 00:47:17,719
I see we always talk this way, right, I see

869
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,840
a table, I see a computer, I see a human,

870
00:47:23,119 --> 00:47:26,639
I see a camera. Right, whatever it is, right, The

871
00:47:26,679 --> 00:47:28,719
fact of the matter is we always attribute to that

872
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,400
to the eye. That's the empiricist mistake, as if the

873
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:34,360
eye sees that, the answer is like, no, the eye

874
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:38,599
doesn't see that. The eye gives you all this data, right,

875
00:47:38,639 --> 00:47:41,880
it gives you this you know, stuff that we call

876
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:43,840
light and shadow and all this sort of stuff. But

877
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:52,000
what happens is that the mind so automatically says table, chair, floor, human, cat,

878
00:47:52,039 --> 00:47:55,800
and dog, And it's so automatic, and it's so immediate

879
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,239
in identifying those groups, which is what allows you to

880
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:02,880
differentiate all the things in your field of view. We

881
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,280
presume it's the eye, but it's not. It's the mind.

882
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:09,039
And if it's true, if realism is true, and that

883
00:48:09,199 --> 00:48:13,400
somehow these structures are divine in nature, they originate from God.

884
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,280
Whether you're a pantheist or you're a theist, or you're

885
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,719
a panentheist, you're a Pagan, you're a Christian, you're some

886
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,760
form of realist in this way. Then what happens is

887
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:26,639
that basic perception is already a mystical experience. So you

888
00:48:26,679 --> 00:48:30,280
want a mythologize world, you're already in it the.

889
00:48:30,159 --> 00:48:31,599
Speaker 2: Moment you embrace realism.

890
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: And now, the reason I think that's so important is

891
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,480
because rather than saying, well, there's a mystical side where

892
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:40,960
we think about the occult and all that sort of stuff,

893
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,840
and then there's a materialist side, rationalist side, and you

894
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:47,480
create a separate you treat them separately. I think the

895
00:48:47,559 --> 00:48:51,199
key is once you really embrace realism and you understand

896
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:56,559
a realism metaphysic, you realize that it's all mystical. The

897
00:48:56,599 --> 00:49:02,119
world is mythologized. Yes, sure, it's haunted with spirits, angels, demons, God,

898
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:04,079
all this sort of stuff. Yeah that's real. You're a

899
00:49:04,119 --> 00:49:08,320
spiritual being after life, all this sort of stuff. Sure, morality,

900
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:14,239
all the rest. But even prior to that, just at

901
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,159
the basic level of you existing in a structured way

902
00:49:19,159 --> 00:49:23,719
and you perceiving those structures, that basic level of existence

903
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,280
is already mystical. And I think if you can grasp that,

904
00:49:27,679 --> 00:49:31,960
now reason can begin to come in and provide some guidance,

905
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:36,760
some discernment right about you know, what are the structures

906
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,599
of morality? What are the spirits I should be talking

907
00:49:39,599 --> 00:49:42,480
to and shouldn't be talking to? Right reason can start

908
00:49:42,519 --> 00:49:45,920
to have that say that's been sort of pushed to

909
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:50,320
the side without in any way nullifying the pursuit of

910
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:50,920
the mystical.

911
00:49:51,119 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 2: So that's that would be my pitch.

912
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:56,159
Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally degree, And anybody who's been watching this

913
00:49:56,159 --> 00:49:59,079
this channel for a while knows that it's argument that

914
00:49:59,119 --> 00:50:02,480
you're presenting so eloquently is one that I'm constantly referring to,

915
00:50:02,559 --> 00:50:06,079
which is that there's magic every time you perceive unity

916
00:50:06,079 --> 00:50:10,360
and multiplicity, Like because that's the that is magic, that

917
00:50:10,519 --> 00:50:13,079
is the moving into one, it's the it's all of

918
00:50:13,119 --> 00:50:16,280
It's like, it's as mystical as the you know, we're

919
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,920
all united with the one in a a platin Platinian

920
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:23,079
you know, mysticism. It's like that happens when you're you know,

921
00:50:23,119 --> 00:50:25,559
grabbing a pen by the way, It's like all the

922
00:50:25,639 --> 00:50:28,960
multiple moves into one and then you have this mystical

923
00:50:29,039 --> 00:50:31,679
experience of the unity of the pen. It's like, yeah,

924
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,079
but then scale that up and then you're in church

925
00:50:34,119 --> 00:50:36,079
and you're doing the Jesus prayer or you're you know,

926
00:50:36,079 --> 00:50:38,519
your your part. But it's it is all the way

927
00:50:38,599 --> 00:50:41,639
down into into everyday perception, you know.

928
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

929
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things.

930
00:50:43,599 --> 00:50:45,679
Speaker 4: I also think is I think that because there's been

931
00:50:46,119 --> 00:50:50,360
people have mocked the ancient vision of how how they

932
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:52,920
would describe our experience of vision. You know that even

933
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:55,039
Christ talks about it like that you have the ray

934
00:50:55,119 --> 00:50:57,880
that leaves the eye and hits the object. I think

935
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,119
that's absolutely true. I think that that ray is attention,

936
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,440
Like that there is a ray that leaves your eye.

937
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 3: We call it attention.

938
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:08,679
Speaker 4: And that attention, you know, is the part of the

939
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:12,119
magic which brings groups into one. And so it's not

940
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:14,920
like it's not that it doesn't exist out there like

941
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,119
you said, it's not like it's it's imposed, but it's

942
00:51:17,119 --> 00:51:22,480
this deeply participative act where human conscience participates in this

943
00:51:22,639 --> 00:51:25,519
magic and bringing you know, these groups, because the groups

944
00:51:25,519 --> 00:51:29,119
can change, right, you know, like the chair if there's

945
00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:31,280
a fire in the room and I'm running out, it's like,

946
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:33,679
you know, the chair is no longer a chair, it's

947
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:35,679
just an it's an obstacle to get.

948
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,039
Speaker 3: To the door. It's real.

949
00:51:37,159 --> 00:51:39,519
Speaker 4: It's a real obstacle that I have to get out

950
00:51:39,519 --> 00:51:41,880
of my way, or it's a weapon or whatever. Like

951
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,039
the groups can change and they're all real, But there

952
00:51:45,159 --> 00:51:48,079
is an aspect of human consciousness which plays a part

953
00:51:48,159 --> 00:51:50,039
in that magical transformation.

954
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that participatory side of perception that

955
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,719
you're talking about it it's, as far as I can tell,

956
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,519
it's the only way to overcome skepticism. So all of

957
00:52:00,559 --> 00:52:04,480
skeptical arguments. Whenever you look at the skepticism of the Enlightenment, right,

958
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,719
it's always based on an alienation between the perceiver and

959
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,199
that which is perceived. Right, So this this starts as

960
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:14,480
a problem with you know, this becomes a problem at

961
00:52:14,519 --> 00:52:17,800
the outset with you know, with the empiricism of John Locke,

962
00:52:18,119 --> 00:52:21,719
because John Locke sitting there and he's going, well, so

963
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:23,800
basically the mind is a tabulauros.

964
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 2: It's this blank slate.

965
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,519
Speaker 1: It's kind of like clay, and then you know, it's

966
00:52:27,639 --> 00:52:30,440
passive as things come in and they like it's kind

967
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,880
of like, you know, if you have a piece of

968
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:34,920
clay and you press your fist into it and now

969
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,039
there's that and so like that's kind of what it's

970
00:52:37,119 --> 00:52:38,960
like the stuff out there like comes in and it

971
00:52:39,039 --> 00:52:43,280
presses in and leaves an impression. Well, what inevitably happens

972
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:46,239
for Locke is then first of all you have you

973
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,000
have a couple of problems that start to emerge. The

974
00:52:48,039 --> 00:52:52,360
one is that you have a verification problem because all

975
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,880
I have access to are the impressions that are in here.

976
00:52:56,039 --> 00:52:59,320
I don't know anything about the thing out there, so

977
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,840
somehow demonstrating And this is how skepticism always got off

978
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,719
the ground in the in the you know, in modernity

979
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:10,119
and the Enlightenment, was that you know, well you can't

980
00:53:10,159 --> 00:53:12,199
how do you know it's the thing out there is

981
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:13,159
like the thing in here?

982
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:13,559
Speaker 2: Right?

983
00:53:14,079 --> 00:53:17,760
Speaker 1: And then Locke only added problems when he started saying, well, yeah,

984
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,639
and then there's like primary and secondary qualities. So certain

985
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:23,880
qualities like extension, those are true to the object out there,

986
00:53:24,199 --> 00:53:27,719
but like smell, that's not real out there, you know,

987
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,800
site like color that's not real, Like that's a phenomena

988
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:33,920
in the mind. So now not only has Lock created

989
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:36,079
an isolation, right, we only.

990
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:38,559
Speaker 2: Have access to the replica. We don't know if the

991
00:53:38,599 --> 00:53:40,440
reckla is liked that thing out there.

992
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 1: But he's also given us reason to think there's discrepancy

993
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:48,679
between reality and the replica. So now he's actually creating problems.

994
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:50,880
And in fact, one of the things that you'll appreciate,

995
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:55,039
which I find so hilarious, is that this actually like

996
00:53:55,199 --> 00:53:58,400
artists went into crisis over painting because of this, Like

997
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:01,239
they were like, we should all be sculptors because at

998
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:05,119
least we're dealing in privy quality, right, But it's like.

999
00:54:05,119 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 2: Wait, so my painting's back there. None of that color

1000
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:08,920
is real.

1001
00:54:09,079 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: Like if I could step outside of my mind and

1002
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,280
look at it would just be flat goo, Like that's

1003
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:13,800
all it is.

1004
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 2: And so this is.

1005
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: Where a lot of the artists, like post lock, we're like, oh,

1006
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:23,519
we should always sculptors. But so that's that lack of

1007
00:54:23,639 --> 00:54:26,920
that inability to verify and all that. That's part of

1008
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,840
what sort of fueled a lot of the skeptical projects,

1009
00:54:30,039 --> 00:54:32,760
you know, in modernity. But the fact of the matter

1010
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,960
is that isolation doesn't exist in realism, right, because part

1011
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:41,920
of the issue is that with realism, the abstract, the generics, right,

1012
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,599
those groups they can be in multiple places. Right, you

1013
00:54:45,639 --> 00:54:50,079
can have three balls that all participate in sphericality. Sphericality

1014
00:54:50,119 --> 00:54:52,280
is manifest and that one that one that one here.

1015
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,920
In the case of you and me, humanity human is

1016
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:58,679
manifesting you, it's manifesting me simultaneously. We participate in the

1017
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:00,599
same generic in the same form.

1018
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:01,039
Speaker 2: Right.

1019
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: Well, once you've said that one form can be in

1020
00:55:05,119 --> 00:55:08,920
multiple objects, Well, all of a sudden, perception makes sense

1021
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:12,039
because what's happening is the form that's out there takes

1022
00:55:12,079 --> 00:55:14,920
up residence in here, right, because it doesn't have to

1023
00:55:15,079 --> 00:55:15,840
just be out there.

1024
00:55:16,159 --> 00:55:17,679
Speaker 2: And so in some ways.

1025
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:22,280
Speaker 1: Perception is isomorphic, meaning when I perceive you, I actually

1026
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:26,400
pull out of your matter all the properties that are there.

1027
00:55:26,519 --> 00:55:29,320
I'd like those properties that are in you take up

1028
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:30,119
residence in here.

1029
00:55:30,159 --> 00:55:31,920
Speaker 2: Now, that doesn't mean that you take.

1030
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 1: Up residence in here, right, You are a discrete subject

1031
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:37,559
outside of me, But the properties of you do take

1032
00:55:37,639 --> 00:55:41,760
up residence in here, and so you don't have a replica, right,

1033
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:45,280
You actually have a participation in the very things that

1034
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,599
are outside of me, you know. And so in that

1035
00:55:48,639 --> 00:55:50,159
way you overcome that gap.

1036
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 2: Right.

1037
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,800
Speaker 1: So the very first starting point of skepticism that requires,

1038
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:57,119
you know, an isolation, right, some sort of separation and

1039
00:55:57,199 --> 00:56:00,719
isolation of you know, perception, and the thing perceed is

1040
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:04,119
overcome by realism and by the very type of you know,

1041
00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:07,119
participation in the object through perception.

1042
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 4: Okay, so how this is the question that I have

1043
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,599
because I've been thinking about this a lot, and like

1044
00:56:12,679 --> 00:56:18,119
the question that that I have is it seems nonetheless

1045
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:23,400
that the perceptions we have are based on human priorities.

1046
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:23,599
Speaker 3: Right.

1047
00:56:23,639 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 4: The reason why we perceive them is because of our life.

1048
00:56:28,039 --> 00:56:29,800
Speaker 3: You know, we we exist, we we live.

1049
00:56:30,199 --> 00:56:32,800
Speaker 4: There's a nor there's a natural hierarchy of perceptions which

1050
00:56:33,559 --> 00:56:37,800
are fit into our the needs that we have, Like

1051
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:38,280
I need to.

1052
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 3: Get to the door. That's why I see a door.

1053
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 4: I need to you know, there's there's a there's a

1054
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:45,480
participation that way. And one of the things that I've

1055
00:56:45,519 --> 00:56:49,840
been working on is formulating the image of the Son

1056
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:53,800
of Man as a solution to that, like the image

1057
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,559
of the Son of Man in scripture, because there's this

1058
00:56:56,559 --> 00:56:59,480
this idea, it's there in Filo as well, in the

1059
00:56:59,559 --> 00:57:04,039
idea of Adam Caedmond, the notion that the primordial atom

1060
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:08,599
is there before creation. Right, in some ways, it's a

1061
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:12,519
it's a very uh, it's it's a it's a it's

1062
00:57:12,559 --> 00:57:16,079
a very strong anthropic way of looking at at the cosmos,

1063
00:57:16,119 --> 00:57:18,079
which is that in some ways Man is there at

1064
00:57:18,079 --> 00:57:21,239
the outset in God, especially if you're a Christian, like

1065
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,679
that that christis is the same before, now and forever,

1066
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:28,199
and that the incarnation, although happened you know in the

1067
00:57:28,239 --> 00:57:32,360
first century, is an eternal reality, and that there's this

1068
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,159
is the mystery, like you know, Father Stephen de Young

1069
00:57:34,239 --> 00:57:37,280
has answered that question, like who who was walking in

1070
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:40,159
the garden with Adam?

1071
00:57:40,599 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 3: Was it Jesus of Nazareth?

1072
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,239
Speaker 4: And he he kind of he does this thing, re hesitates.

1073
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:45,840
Speaker 3: And he goes, yes, you know.

1074
00:57:46,679 --> 00:57:49,519
Speaker 4: But but the sense that that that in some ways

1075
00:57:49,679 --> 00:57:53,400
creation also, although I totally agree with your idea of

1076
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:56,960
realism is through man and in man that it takes

1077
00:57:57,079 --> 00:58:01,039
that it comes to be focused, and that human consciouness

1078
00:58:01,079 --> 00:58:04,320
plays a role in bringing it all together and making

1079
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:06,159
it meaningful.

1080
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: I could say the way to say it, Yeah, so

1081
00:58:09,559 --> 00:58:12,559
what and the Adam Cadman thing that you're talking about,

1082
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:16,199
what's interesting is you know that's there and I'm convinced

1083
00:58:16,199 --> 00:58:17,079
it's echoed in Paul.

1084
00:58:17,239 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 2: Right.

1085
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:19,320
Speaker 1: So when Paul talks about you've been made in the

1086
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,199
image of earth man, you need to be remade in

1087
00:58:22,239 --> 00:58:23,840
the image of the Man of Heaven. That's right, out

1088
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,400
of Filo, right, Like, because Filo basically, you know, Adam

1089
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:31,679
means earth man, right, And and then you know Filo's

1090
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:35,000
presumption is that God must have archetypes, right. This was

1091
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,840
this was one of the basic This was one of

1092
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:41,679
the basic defenses of realism, was that in the Genesis

1093
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:45,920
creation account, God says, let there be and there's not

1094
00:58:46,039 --> 00:58:49,559
yet those things, right. And so the part of the

1095
00:58:49,639 --> 00:58:51,280
question was, what's he referring to?

1096
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 2: Right?

1097
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: How is it meaningful to say, let's let there be

1098
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:58,000
beasts of the field if there's not yet, there's no

1099
00:58:58,079 --> 00:59:01,039
reference for it, right, And the prison was God must

1100
00:59:01,039 --> 00:59:05,039
have ideas of what it is that he wants, you know,

1101
00:59:05,159 --> 00:59:07,840
to come into being, right. And so this is where

1102
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:12,519
Genesis was presumed to actually be, you know, an overtly

1103
00:59:12,599 --> 00:59:17,199
realist text where God has archetypal ideas of things and

1104
00:59:17,239 --> 00:59:19,159
then he speaks those things and none of those things

1105
00:59:19,199 --> 00:59:20,239
manifest in matter.

1106
00:59:20,639 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 2: Right.

1107
00:59:21,639 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is for those who are familiar with

1108
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:28,360
the fact that like or maybe people aren't familiar with

1109
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:31,559
the fact that Genesis is a polemical text, right in

1110
00:59:31,599 --> 00:59:35,159
some ways, it's it's echoing other creation myths and then

1111
00:59:35,199 --> 00:59:39,280
correcting them, right, but one of the few creation myths

1112
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:43,119
it doesn't treat polemically is the Memphi creation myth. It's

1113
00:59:43,159 --> 00:59:45,639
one that it actually just echoes, which is in the

1114
00:59:45,679 --> 00:59:50,719
Memphi creation myth you have you know, you know Patah, right,

1115
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:53,760
who like thinks of these archetypes and then says let

1116
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:56,719
there be and then Atum, the creator God looks at

1117
00:59:56,760 --> 00:59:59,440
the archetype in PETA's mind and then goes make a

1118
00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:02,679
material replica. And that's one of the things that Genesis

1119
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:06,480
is echoing, and it echoes it in even subtler ways,

1120
01:00:06,519 --> 01:00:09,400
like there's certain points where obviously God's commanding the earth

1121
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:12,639
to bring forth things, and it does, but there are

1122
01:00:12,639 --> 01:00:16,039
certain points where God commands and then God obeys, and

1123
01:00:16,079 --> 01:00:18,599
so you still have this sort of duality, just like

1124
01:00:18,639 --> 01:00:22,199
you would have Patah and Atum. Of course it's the Trinity, right,

1125
01:00:22,239 --> 01:00:24,599
the second person the Trinity is obeying and.

1126
01:00:25,199 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 3: Then you have it.

1127
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:27,519
Speaker 4: But then you also have an image of that in

1128
01:00:27,559 --> 01:00:31,320
the earthly man naming the animal. Whereas in some ways

1129
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:37,599
the source of the being is somehow some aspect of

1130
01:00:37,639 --> 01:00:41,639
the contingency of the being is emanating from Adam, reflecting God,

1131
01:00:42,079 --> 01:00:45,239
but is not like a it's not a you know,

1132
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:47,239
like I said, it an Arbitrarrian position of the world.

1133
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:50,320
But it is simultaneously a naming and a recognition of

1134
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:55,039
the being that that Adam is encountering. And so this

1135
01:00:55,239 --> 01:00:57,559
idea that naming is both at the same time in

1136
01:00:57,920 --> 01:00:59,079
a mysterious way.

1137
01:00:59,199 --> 01:01:01,599
Speaker 1: Right, yes, yeah, And that's one of the reasons why

1138
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,159
names become such an important thing, not only in the

1139
01:01:05,159 --> 01:01:08,079
ancient world, right because their images, right, like this is

1140
01:01:08,119 --> 01:01:11,039
part of the reason. There's definitely presum presumed that just

1141
01:01:11,079 --> 01:01:13,559
like there are there's a connection between say the symbol

1142
01:01:13,599 --> 01:01:16,440
of a thing or the icon and the archetype or something.

1143
01:01:16,639 --> 01:01:19,400
The name is its own sort of representation of the

1144
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:23,320
thing that's tied with its archetype in ancient ways of thinking,

1145
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:25,599
and so the naming is really critical. It's why in

1146
01:01:25,599 --> 01:01:27,599
the ancient world you're not supposed to say the names

1147
01:01:27,639 --> 01:01:30,599
of the foreign gods, because you're basically invoking them if

1148
01:01:30,599 --> 01:01:33,159
you start to, you know, pull the And that's why

1149
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:35,880
it was a practice. Right if you have like the

1150
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:38,400
name of the deity, right, you put vowel points for

1151
01:01:38,519 --> 01:01:43,079
like shame, right like, so like you knows start isn't

1152
01:01:43,119 --> 01:01:46,719
actually like or I'm sorry, Asteroth is not actually astoroth right,

1153
01:01:46,719 --> 01:01:49,320
it's a start with the vowel points for shame over

1154
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:51,880
top of it, which is where you get you know, astoroth.

1155
01:01:52,239 --> 01:01:54,079
Speaker 4: Oh really and I didn't know anything. I didn't know

1156
01:01:54,119 --> 01:01:56,480
about that. But that's it's an interesting idea. And people

1157
01:01:56,559 --> 01:02:00,320
might think that this is ridiculous, but this is actually

1158
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:04,320
quite real. That is, you can can I say this, like,

1159
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:11,039
so if you bring up subjects you know, constantly in culture,

1160
01:02:11,559 --> 01:02:14,840
those subjects at some point will start to be part

1161
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:17,679
of culture. And so even if you're against it or

1162
01:02:17,719 --> 01:02:20,360
for it, like if you start to bring up certain

1163
01:02:20,679 --> 01:02:24,159
certain realities in in in the world, then they'll start

1164
01:02:24,199 --> 01:02:27,599
to manifest. You know, it doesn't matter which side you're on.

1165
01:02:27,679 --> 01:02:30,159
And so this idea that you're so for example, like

1166
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:36,119
the idea in science fiction that you create a story

1167
01:02:36,159 --> 01:02:39,559
with sky net and an ai that is that is

1168
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:41,960
destroying the world. Then you think, oh, it's great, we're

1169
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:45,719
doing something against it. But you're also making it happen simultaneously.

1170
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:47,920
And so so a lot of people might think the

1171
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,440
idea that you know, you shouldn't name something because you're

1172
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:52,920
invoking it, and that it's it's superstition and silly, but

1173
01:02:53,239 --> 01:02:56,280
This is a reality that we we experience all the time,

1174
01:02:56,519 --> 01:03:00,400
which is that you know, bringing up something in culture,

1175
01:03:00,519 --> 01:03:03,960
either positively or negatively, is making it part of the

1176
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:08,079
web of relationships that is engaging in that in that culture.

1177
01:03:08,119 --> 01:03:11,159
And so it's like talking about something either for or again.

1178
01:03:11,239 --> 01:03:13,039
Speaker 3: So you make a movie about.

1179
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:16,559
Speaker 4: An evil Skynet that that brings about AI, that AI

1180
01:03:16,679 --> 01:03:19,280
comes to destroy you, and you think that you're just

1181
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:23,159
opposing it, but you're also participating in bringing it out

1182
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:26,679
because it's now part of the web of relationships that

1183
01:03:26,760 --> 01:03:29,760
exist in our society. And so we're very naive about

1184
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:32,519
how reality functions, and we think that, you know, like

1185
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:35,400
we think that when we oppose something and we do

1186
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,039
it publicly and we're going to do a whole campaign

1187
01:03:38,079 --> 01:03:41,239
against something, you don't realize that you're also making it

1188
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,599
vocally more present in society and possibly it will it

1189
01:03:45,639 --> 01:03:47,800
will make it manifest.

1190
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:48,679
Speaker 3: Even more than what it was before.

1191
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, So I would love to go more on

1192
01:03:53,039 --> 01:03:55,400
the whole name thing and simple thing in the connection

1193
01:03:55,519 --> 01:03:58,079
between image and archetype, but I want to I don't

1194
01:03:58,119 --> 01:04:00,400
want to lose your question, which was the one you

1195
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:02,800
were asking about the focal point of man. So The

1196
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:05,280
reason I was bringing this up is because Filo in

1197
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,599
terms of you know, Filow is one of those folks

1198
01:04:07,599 --> 01:04:11,400
who's like, yeah, obviously God has you know, he has

1199
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:13,639
a blueprint so to speak, for the thing that he's

1200
01:04:13,639 --> 01:04:15,400
going to make. And so there's this image in the

1201
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:18,840
divine mind. And so for that reason he presumes that

1202
01:04:19,199 --> 01:04:24,000
there must actually be write some sort of archetype of man. Right,

1203
01:04:24,039 --> 01:04:27,880
so the heaven man is actually the archetype for earth man,

1204
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:32,480
and you know, and and Filo toys with all the

1205
01:04:32,519 --> 01:04:35,360
different ideas that like, well, and maybe the real image

1206
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:39,119
of God is the Logos, right, which is you know,

1207
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:42,599
is and he's like, and who knows, maybe the Logos

1208
01:04:42,639 --> 01:04:45,840
will like and the Logos who he calls Duteros, theosk

1209
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:49,079
second God, and he's like, and who knows, Like maybe

1210
01:04:49,119 --> 01:04:51,320
he'll be the one who like becomes incarnate and like

1211
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:53,559
sets up the royal priest and all this sort of stuff,

1212
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:55,840
like Filow is incredible.

1213
01:04:56,199 --> 01:04:59,519
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing to see just how much of the

1214
01:05:00,239 --> 01:05:02,360
some of the ideas that we're floating around in first

1215
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:07,039
century Judaism have been completely expunged from modern Judaism today.

1216
01:05:07,079 --> 01:05:09,320
And most people don't know that a lot of the

1217
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,360
stuff was right there, it all bubbling.

1218
01:05:12,159 --> 01:05:14,599
Speaker 1: Well, and I think it's intentional, Like I mean, I think,

1219
01:05:14,639 --> 01:05:17,639
and again this would be its own sort of a side,

1220
01:05:17,679 --> 01:05:20,280
but I do think what you see is there's a

1221
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,880
highly Hellenized Judaism in the first century. Like Pilo of

1222
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:26,039
Alexandria is now sort of sneered like, oh, he's not

1223
01:05:26,079 --> 01:05:29,480
really Jewish, right, He's like a Greek, right, really, you know,

1224
01:05:29,559 --> 01:05:30,719
a Greek and Jews.

1225
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:31,400
Speaker 2: Clothing type thing.

1226
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,960
Speaker 1: But it's like, no, like Alexandrian Judaism is a real

1227
01:05:35,119 --> 01:05:38,719
legitimate form of you know, Judaism that's going on. And

1228
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:40,480
in many ways, a lot of what we think of

1229
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:43,960
as Jewish today is in some ways reactionary, right, It's

1230
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:46,840
like people are converting. We need to sort of prioritize,

1231
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:48,039
we need to get rid of a lot of the

1232
01:05:48,039 --> 01:05:50,559
Greek philosophy. We've got to sort of become a little

1233
01:05:50,599 --> 01:05:53,679
bit more sort of culturally isolationist, and you know things.

1234
01:05:53,679 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 4: But the image of this figure is there, not just

1235
01:05:56,920 --> 01:05:59,360
in the interpreters, but it's there in scripture itself, you know.

1236
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:01,519
I mean, that's right, And you'll see the son of

1237
01:06:01,599 --> 01:06:04,719
man Ezekiel sees the son of Man sitting in the

1238
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:07,679
throne on the dome of Heaven. It's like exactly the

1239
01:06:07,719 --> 01:06:10,440
image that we use in the architecture of the Orthodox Church.

1240
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:12,880
He sees a dome, and he sees a throne, and

1241
01:06:12,920 --> 01:06:14,880
he sees a figure like the son of a man

1242
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:16,199
sitting on the throne.

1243
01:06:16,199 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 3: It's like, that's how we make our churches, folks.

1244
01:06:18,199 --> 01:06:20,480
Speaker 1: Right, And that's what Paul is getting at when he's

1245
01:06:20,519 --> 01:06:22,199
talking about like you've been made in the image of

1246
01:06:22,199 --> 01:06:25,159
earth Man, right, like that you've become corrupt, right you are,

1247
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:28,039
you know, you're his descendants, You've been crippled by the fall,

1248
01:06:28,119 --> 01:06:30,119
this sort of stuff. You need to be remade in

1249
01:06:30,159 --> 01:06:32,039
the image of the Man of Heaven, right, which is

1250
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:35,239
you know exactly what you're talking about now, at least

1251
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:38,920
how I see all that sort of stuff coming together,

1252
01:06:39,239 --> 01:06:41,400
you know, to the question that you're talking about. This

1253
01:06:41,440 --> 01:06:43,559
is how I would approach it anyway, or how I

1254
01:06:43,639 --> 01:06:46,119
do approach it in my thinking. You know, one of

1255
01:06:46,159 --> 01:06:49,239
the central things that you find in a lot of

1256
01:06:49,239 --> 01:06:53,440
the Eastern Fathers is this notion of man as a microcosm.

1257
01:06:53,719 --> 01:06:56,639
And I think that's that's where I always go, because

1258
01:06:56,960 --> 01:06:59,599
you know, Plato if you look at Plato's argument for

1259
01:06:59,719 --> 01:07:02,440
the mortality of the soul, his affinity argument, as it's

1260
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:05,320
sometimes called. One of the observations he makes is that

1261
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,159
there's really sort of two types of things in reality. Right,

1262
01:07:09,159 --> 01:07:12,800
there's being and becoming relatively immortal, you know, and then

1263
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:15,519
the mortal right, things that are organic and come to

1264
01:07:15,519 --> 01:07:17,960
be and pass away. And then there's other stuff like

1265
01:07:18,079 --> 01:07:21,719
math that like doesn't do that, right, it just sort

1266
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:25,960
of is, you know what it is. And then and

1267
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:28,840
then obviously, you know, he would put on the relatively

1268
01:07:28,840 --> 01:07:31,679
immortal side, right, you would have you know, spirits, right,

1269
01:07:31,719 --> 01:07:35,280
you'd have these sorts of deities, and so you have

1270
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:38,079
you have this sort of sense in which we live

1271
01:07:38,119 --> 01:07:40,920
in this bifurcated world where there's like the things of

1272
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:43,360
the mortal right, things that are organic that come to

1273
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:46,440
be that pass away, that that you know, our generate,

1274
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:50,559
you know, that generate and then undergo corruption and dissipate.

1275
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:53,519
And then you have these other beings that are relatively immortal.

1276
01:07:53,559 --> 01:07:56,880
And I say relatively immortal because in the Eastern fathers, right,

1277
01:07:56,960 --> 01:08:01,159
people like Pseudodionysias and things like that, you know, they

1278
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:04,760
you know, only God is immortal, right, like they'll say

1279
01:08:04,760 --> 01:08:07,599
that explicitly, and pauls is that right, explicitly? That only

1280
01:08:07,639 --> 01:08:11,119
God is immortal. And the reason is because we believe

1281
01:08:11,159 --> 01:08:13,920
that angels are created, right, so they're not true gods

1282
01:08:14,239 --> 01:08:16,479
in the way that the God is right where they

1283
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:20,079
where they are, you know, not creatures. They are creatures,

1284
01:08:20,239 --> 01:08:23,159
and so they are created. But and so in this

1285
01:08:23,279 --> 01:08:26,680
sense they are relatively immortal. They're not subject to sort

1286
01:08:26,720 --> 01:08:29,760
of birth and generation and decay and you know, old

1287
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:31,600
age and things like that, the way you know, the

1288
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:35,960
way that organisms are. And yet in Genesis, what you

1289
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:38,800
see is you see this acknowledgment of this sort of

1290
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:42,199
bifurcated world. And in Man, what you see is the

1291
01:08:42,359 --> 01:08:45,479
unification of those two things, right where man is taken

1292
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:48,119
from the dust of the earth, just like the animals

1293
01:08:48,119 --> 01:08:50,239
were taken from the dust of the earth, but he's

1294
01:08:50,239 --> 01:08:53,079
breathed into from heaven and becomes a living being. And

1295
01:08:53,119 --> 01:08:56,039
so this merger of heaven and earth. And I don't

1296
01:08:56,079 --> 01:08:58,800
know how many people have done this. I was writing

1297
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:01,079
an article on this way back when that I never finished.

1298
01:09:01,399 --> 01:09:03,960
Probably should finish it at some point, but I think

1299
01:09:04,239 --> 01:09:07,359
it's really fascinating if you follow in the Book of

1300
01:09:07,399 --> 01:09:12,920
Genesis the associations of Earth and the associations of heaven.

1301
01:09:13,560 --> 01:09:15,800
So there's this really sort of weird thing that a

1302
01:09:15,840 --> 01:09:18,039
lot of scholars are like, what's that? And therefore, which

1303
01:09:18,079 --> 01:09:20,760
is the Toladote, which is the these are the generations

1304
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:24,039
of right, and you have this weird moment where there's

1305
01:09:24,079 --> 01:09:26,279
these are the generations of the heavens and the Earth,

1306
01:09:26,439 --> 01:09:31,159
and then you get another creation account. And my belief

1307
01:09:31,199 --> 01:09:35,079
about that toleadote what it's doing in there is that

1308
01:09:35,199 --> 01:09:39,520
it's actually what it's actually doing is it's identifying which

1309
01:09:39,600 --> 01:09:44,000
people represent the folks who are of heaven and which

1310
01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:47,119
folks are of earth. And so it's really interesting that,

1311
01:09:47,279 --> 01:09:50,880
you know, like Cain is a tiller of the soil, right,

1312
01:09:50,960 --> 01:09:53,680
it's really interesting the way it talks about, you know,

1313
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:56,600
with Noah them being lifted up to the heavens, but

1314
01:09:56,720 --> 01:09:59,199
also the drowning of the people into the earth right,

1315
01:09:59,239 --> 01:10:01,880
things like that. Right, there's if you follow the sort

1316
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:03,520
of heavens and the earth, right, the earth is going

1317
01:10:03,600 --> 01:10:06,399
to refuse to give up its fruit, right, and Joseph

1318
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:08,760
is going to be there in order to help rescue

1319
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:11,560
the people from that. This is a consistent theme and

1320
01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:14,520
so I'm inclined to think that what's that's setting up

1321
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:15,359
is I think there's.

1322
01:10:15,159 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 4: Analogy through all the characters in Genesis to help us

1323
01:10:18,039 --> 01:10:19,960
see whether they're from Heaven or from Earth.

1324
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:21,399
Speaker 3: That's a real idea.

1325
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:24,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think that's a worthy thing to explore.

1326
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:26,840
And maybe somebody will get it before me, and they

1327
01:10:26,880 --> 01:10:28,119
can just say like, yeah.

1328
01:10:28,239 --> 01:10:30,279
Speaker 3: Hey, finish the article, we'll publish it.

1329
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:31,199
Speaker 2: That's great.

1330
01:10:31,279 --> 01:10:34,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, that would be great, Okay deal.

1331
01:10:35,560 --> 01:10:38,359
But anyway, but the reason I think that's important is

1332
01:10:38,399 --> 01:10:41,600
because the microcosm doctrine of the Eastern Fathers is they

1333
01:10:41,640 --> 01:10:45,479
recognize that what man is is like taking of mortal things.

1334
01:10:45,520 --> 01:10:47,760
Like John of Damascus talks about this where he's like,

1335
01:10:47,760 --> 01:10:49,720
there's two types of things and he's doing like this

1336
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:53,640
por fiery tree of the nature being, and you have

1337
01:10:53,880 --> 01:10:57,840
like mortal and you have immortal, right, and again immortal

1338
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:02,560
relatively immortal because they're all creatures. But the point is

1339
01:11:02,600 --> 01:11:04,520
like mortal and immortal. And one of the questions that

1340
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:07,640
emerges and emerges you see it in Filo. So the

1341
01:11:07,720 --> 01:11:10,439
natural question that emerges when you're like, okay, we're going

1342
01:11:10,520 --> 01:11:12,960
to take something that's mortal and we're going to take

1343
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,000
stuff that's immortal and we're going to put it together.

1344
01:11:15,039 --> 01:11:17,319
What do you have, like, is Adam made mortal or

1345
01:11:17,399 --> 01:11:20,439
is he made immortal? And you find that question and

1346
01:11:20,560 --> 01:11:24,840
like Filo of Alexandria, and and and then you find

1347
01:11:24,840 --> 01:11:28,119
it in Theophilis of Antioch, and Filo's answer is the

1348
01:11:28,119 --> 01:11:30,720
same that then echoes in the Eastern Church Fathers, people

1349
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:35,399
like Theophilis, people like you know, people like Nemesis of Amessa,

1350
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:39,600
and he basically says that he is created neither, that

1351
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:44,199
he is created potentially mortal and potentially immortal. And his will,

1352
01:11:44,399 --> 01:11:49,199
right self determination, his free will, is what decides which

1353
01:11:49,239 --> 01:11:52,920
one is going to win out moving toward the immortal,

1354
01:11:53,319 --> 01:11:58,079
embracing it, participating in it, leading to deification, right participation

1355
01:11:58,159 --> 01:12:02,800
in God and up elevating and deifying the lower nature

1356
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:05,439
with it, right, it sort of brings it up into it,

1357
01:12:05,680 --> 01:12:09,600
into the heavenies. Whereas the alternative is if he submits

1358
01:12:09,640 --> 01:12:11,880
to the lower nature and to the passions, it ends

1359
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,159
up inverted and you get a corrupted nature. And that's

1360
01:12:14,199 --> 01:12:17,520
actually the nature of corruption in the Eastern Fathers is

1361
01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:20,720
that it's just an inverted nature where the higher nature,

1362
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:23,600
which should rule and which should d of eye and

1363
01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:26,479
should bring up to heaven, is perpetually like oppressed and

1364
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:29,720
dragged down and sort of beaten down by the passions

1365
01:12:29,760 --> 01:12:32,920
of the lower nature, which have an unnatural sway. And

1366
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:35,159
that's the thing that Paul's talking about in you know

1367
01:12:35,279 --> 01:12:38,359
Roman seven is that the spirit, And it's not the

1368
01:12:38,359 --> 01:12:40,359
Holy Spirit. He doesn't bring up the Holy Spirit till

1369
01:12:40,439 --> 01:12:43,199
Romans eight. You know he and you can tell because

1370
01:12:43,199 --> 01:12:47,840
he uses spirit interchangeably with noose. In seven twenty seven,

1371
01:12:48,159 --> 01:12:50,880
he's talking about a war between like the passions, right,

1372
01:12:50,920 --> 01:12:54,439
the fleshly nature, the lower nature, and the rational nature.

1373
01:12:54,439 --> 01:12:57,119
So the rational nature knows like the way, like the

1374
01:12:57,119 --> 01:12:59,960
thing it should do, but like the passions have unnatural sway.

1375
01:13:00,840 --> 01:13:03,399
Now why is all that relevant? Like one of the

1376
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:07,640
questions is like, well, why make why make this merger

1377
01:13:08,359 --> 01:13:11,279
of the mortal and the immortal? And in the microcosm

1378
01:13:11,319 --> 01:13:15,079
doctrine of the Eastern Fathers, the idea is what makes

1379
01:13:15,119 --> 01:13:18,720
man a microcosm is that it's all the things right,

1380
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:21,560
He's made all of these sort of heavenly things, all

1381
01:13:21,600 --> 01:13:24,520
of these immortal things, all these earthly things, and all

1382
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:27,800
of those things end up being merged into this one microcosm.

1383
01:13:28,239 --> 01:13:31,000
Now why is that relevant, right, Like it's relevant, what's

1384
01:13:31,039 --> 01:13:33,760
the purpose of it? Well, in the Eastern Fathers, and

1385
01:13:33,800 --> 01:13:37,279
this is because they have a cosmic view of man's salvation.

1386
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:40,159
It's not just about you and your relationship with Jesus

1387
01:13:40,159 --> 01:13:42,640
and getting saved, right, it's for the sake of the

1388
01:13:42,720 --> 01:13:48,800
cosmos itself, which is the idea that images of God, right,

1389
01:13:49,039 --> 01:13:53,000
things like angels, things like the rational soul, can participate

1390
01:13:53,159 --> 01:13:55,760
in and bear the likeness of God. We can start

1391
01:13:55,800 --> 01:13:59,920
to imitate in things like justice and mercy and love.

1392
01:14:00,119 --> 01:14:03,760
We can participate in things like immortality and in corruption

1393
01:14:03,800 --> 01:14:07,119
and things like that. Lower animals they reflect something of

1394
01:14:07,119 --> 01:14:10,960
the wisdom of God, right, but not being images, they

1395
01:14:10,960 --> 01:14:14,319
don't have the capacity to participate in some of those,

1396
01:14:14,520 --> 01:14:17,600
you know, those higher things. So what happens is in

1397
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:21,760
the is man as a microcosm. By merging those the

1398
01:14:22,119 --> 01:14:24,720
things together, you create a means by which the lowest

1399
01:14:24,760 --> 01:14:28,479
things of creation can begin to participate in God in

1400
01:14:28,520 --> 01:14:31,159
a way they couldn't otherwise do it. And that's why

1401
01:14:31,159 --> 01:14:33,600
the deification of man is not supposed to be just

1402
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:36,600
ending with man. It's supposed to spread just like with

1403
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:40,239
the story of the Saints, Animals become more human right

1404
01:14:40,319 --> 01:14:42,920
in the way they interact with the Saints. Plants grow

1405
01:14:43,000 --> 01:14:46,199
in weird ways, right in the ways that it spreads

1406
01:14:46,239 --> 01:14:49,039
from the Saints to the rest of the cosmos. Like

1407
01:14:50,239 --> 01:14:52,520
a metaphor that I like is to say, like, look,

1408
01:14:53,520 --> 01:14:55,800
you know, if we think of God like Bach, right,

1409
01:14:55,840 --> 01:15:00,880
he's a brilliant musician, right, and and you know there's

1410
01:15:00,920 --> 01:15:03,880
all that creative genius within him, and then we're like, okay,

1411
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:07,720
but it needs to be articulated. Okay, so Bach particulately,

1412
01:15:07,720 --> 01:15:10,279
you know, articulate for us your creativity. And we give

1413
01:15:10,359 --> 01:15:12,479
him a cello, right, like all of a sudden we

1414
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:17,399
get something really fantastic. But if we're like, here's a triangle,

1415
01:15:18,199 --> 01:15:22,119
show us your musical genius with a triangle. I mean,

1416
01:15:22,399 --> 01:15:25,720
I'm sure he could do something more fascinating than I could,

1417
01:15:26,479 --> 01:15:28,600
but it's highly limited because of.

1418
01:15:28,640 --> 01:15:30,720
Speaker 3: Limited by the identity of the thing itself.

1419
01:15:31,039 --> 01:15:35,119
Speaker 1: Right, But you give him an orchestra, and that triangle

1420
01:15:35,159 --> 01:15:37,920
plays a part now in the larger thing. It begins

1421
01:15:37,960 --> 01:15:40,399
to participate in box genius in a greater way than

1422
01:15:40,399 --> 01:15:42,880
it could otherwise. And that's the whole point of the

1423
01:15:42,960 --> 01:15:47,239
microcosm of man is that what man becomes is Man is,

1424
01:15:47,399 --> 01:15:50,880
on the one hand, an image of God, right, having reason, logos,

1425
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:54,760
right spirit, being a spiritual being. But at the same time,

1426
01:15:55,359 --> 01:15:59,840
Man is essentially a God over the lower things of creation. Right,

1427
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:03,399
we are this picture of like this this the rational,

1428
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:07,680
immortal things merge with the lower things. And then through

1429
01:16:07,760 --> 01:16:11,159
our own transformation, you know, through our own imitation of God,

1430
01:16:11,239 --> 01:16:14,000
we begin to raise up the lower things to participate

1431
01:16:14,039 --> 01:16:17,119
in God in greater ways than they could otherwise. And

1432
01:16:17,159 --> 01:16:19,800
that's why I think all of the sort of aspects

1433
01:16:19,840 --> 01:16:22,239
when you talk about the divine and realism and what's

1434
01:16:22,279 --> 01:16:24,520
there in the divine mind and the archetypes and all

1435
01:16:24,560 --> 01:16:27,159
the rest, why does it all come to that point

1436
01:16:27,199 --> 01:16:29,520
in man? Well, it comes to that point in man

1437
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:32,199
because God desires all things to be as much like

1438
01:16:32,319 --> 01:16:35,479
God as possible. To quote Plato's to meais right like

1439
01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:38,800
or to roughly quote it right that He desires all

1440
01:16:38,840 --> 01:16:42,359
things to participate in Him to a degree beyond what

1441
01:16:42,399 --> 01:16:46,800
they otherwise could. But what that requires is that requires

1442
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:51,159
some being such as man, who can actually provide a

1443
01:16:51,239 --> 01:16:54,960
bridge right between the mortal and the immortal, and through

1444
01:16:55,039 --> 01:16:59,279
his own you know, salvation through his own deification, raise

1445
01:16:59,399 --> 01:17:01,560
up the lower thing things to participate in God to

1446
01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:05,159
a greater degree. And that's where you know, we encapsulate,

1447
01:17:05,279 --> 01:17:08,520
you know, not just the icon of God, but all

1448
01:17:08,600 --> 01:17:11,239
the things that have ever been articulated by God, the

1449
01:17:11,279 --> 01:17:14,600
whole of the cosmos. We become that small picture of

1450
01:17:14,600 --> 01:17:17,800
the cosmos as well as a means of deifying not

1451
01:17:18,079 --> 01:17:21,760
just our micro cosmos, right, but the cosmos itself. So

1452
01:17:21,840 --> 01:17:24,640
that's that's the that's how I would approach it.

1453
01:17:24,960 --> 01:17:25,640
Speaker 3: That's amazing.

1454
01:17:25,720 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 4: I mean straight, yes, straight, beautiful, straight out of sat

1455
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:30,720
Maximus sraight out of the Fathers.

1456
01:17:30,399 --> 01:17:31,279
Speaker 3: But very powerful.

1457
01:17:31,279 --> 01:17:33,039
Speaker 4: And I think the image of the orchestra is such

1458
01:17:33,079 --> 01:17:35,640
a great way of representing.

1459
01:17:35,039 --> 01:17:38,199
Speaker 3: It, which is that it's it's like it's.

1460
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:41,079
Speaker 4: Enjoining together, this communion of love. We could say, of

1461
01:17:41,119 --> 01:17:44,359
all these things moving together, you know, into man and

1462
01:17:44,399 --> 01:17:47,800
through man and then becoming this participating in the image

1463
01:17:47,800 --> 01:17:50,199
of God. I think it's it's beautiful. So Nathan, we've

1464
01:17:50,199 --> 01:17:51,920
been going for a while, but I want you to

1465
01:17:52,039 --> 01:17:54,880
tell people a bit about your upcoming project because you're

1466
01:17:55,039 --> 01:17:56,680
about to start a new podcast.

1467
01:17:56,760 --> 01:17:59,159
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, So I've got a podcast that's

1468
01:17:59,239 --> 01:18:00,800
launching this week.

1469
01:18:00,840 --> 01:18:02,399
Speaker 2: I don't know when this one is dropping.

1470
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:06,199
Speaker 1: I'm hoping it's dropping after mine, which is probably dropping

1471
01:18:06,199 --> 01:18:08,960
in a couple of days, So hopefully this is appearing

1472
01:18:09,600 --> 01:18:14,319
after mine is appearing. Okay, so mine is just launching now,

1473
01:18:15,239 --> 01:18:18,079
and it is it's going to be a mix of actually,

1474
01:18:18,159 --> 01:18:20,920
based on your advice, it's going to be a mix

1475
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:25,039
of you know me, you know, you know, individually speaking

1476
01:18:25,079 --> 01:18:29,680
to you know, listeners as a public intellectual, as well

1477
01:18:29,720 --> 01:18:34,279
as you know, interviewing folks who are terribly interesting. And

1478
01:18:34,319 --> 01:18:36,239
I hope you will be one of those folks who

1479
01:18:36,239 --> 01:18:39,039
will come and let me interview you first for a switch, right,

1480
01:18:39,119 --> 01:18:43,359
you know, but you know that sort of thing, and

1481
01:18:43,800 --> 01:18:45,560
a lot of what we've talked about today is what's

1482
01:18:45,600 --> 01:18:48,479
central to it. Right, So what what really sort of

1483
01:18:48,560 --> 01:18:50,920
drove me to want to do a podcast was the

1484
01:18:50,920 --> 01:18:54,920
fact that I realized, Okay, there's a lot of resonance

1485
01:18:55,520 --> 01:18:57,840
that I have with people like yourself, you know, with

1486
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:00,479
other sort of podcasters that are out there. But I

1487
01:19:00,520 --> 01:19:02,720
recognize that I'm a little different in the fact that

1488
01:19:02,800 --> 01:19:05,239
I'm a metaphysician, right, Like that's what I do, Right,

1489
01:19:05,319 --> 01:19:09,359
I'm like that's that's my area. And so a lot

1490
01:19:09,399 --> 01:19:11,880
of the things that I do in terms of realism

1491
01:19:12,039 --> 01:19:17,279
and realist metaphysics is there in the in the structures,

1492
01:19:17,279 --> 01:19:19,680
and in the conversations happening. But I'm like, I want

1493
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,800
to draw it to the four And so that's where

1494
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:24,880
I was like, I think my voice can add a

1495
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:27,720
little something to the conversation by just being, you know,

1496
01:19:27,800 --> 01:19:32,479
somebody who's advocating for that exactly the thing we talked about, right,

1497
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:37,199
that realism, which I believe ultimately is a mystical approach

1498
01:19:37,239 --> 01:19:41,960
to reasoning itself that begins to help unearth what's happening

1499
01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:45,039
in the conversation. So I'm convinced the realist nominalist divide

1500
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:48,199
is central to so many things happening in our culture.

1501
01:19:48,560 --> 01:19:51,079
I think once you start to see that divide, you

1502
01:19:51,079 --> 01:19:53,520
can begin to understand part of where we're at in

1503
01:19:53,640 --> 01:19:56,960
terms of culture, in terms of culture wars, in discussions

1504
01:19:56,960 --> 01:19:59,520
that are happening with people, how that divide, like what

1505
01:19:59,560 --> 01:20:03,119
the real is underneath the conversations and things like that.

1506
01:20:03,640 --> 01:20:06,760
And so with my podcast, I'm really looking to spend

1507
01:20:06,840 --> 01:20:09,000
time sort of drawing that to the fore and making

1508
01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:12,560
people aware of it. In order to help give them

1509
01:20:12,800 --> 01:20:16,159
a framework for starting to look a little differently at

1510
01:20:16,359 --> 01:20:20,199
the cultural divides, the cultural conversations, and then also begin

1511
01:20:20,279 --> 01:20:24,399
to add to those intuitions, right, that sort of realist

1512
01:20:24,560 --> 01:20:27,960
reasoning in terms of how to dissect and approach and

1513
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:29,880
you know, think through a lot of these topics. So

1514
01:20:30,319 --> 01:20:35,319
the Nathan Jacobs podcast very creatively named I decided to

1515
01:20:35,359 --> 01:20:37,039
really go for something esoteric.

1516
01:20:37,279 --> 01:20:37,760
Speaker 3: You there you go.

1517
01:20:38,399 --> 01:20:40,840
Speaker 4: I think it's great. I think it's I think it's important.

1518
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:43,239
I think that, you know, especially if you're able to

1519
01:20:43,279 --> 01:20:46,920
bring precision to some to intuitions that we have, you know,

1520
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:50,600
precision both in terms of the right vocabulary, you know,

1521
01:20:50,680 --> 01:20:53,000
the right order of ways to talk about it to

1522
01:20:53,119 --> 01:20:55,359
really for it to land, but then also you know,

1523
01:20:55,439 --> 01:20:58,000
also showing historical precedents that some of us, like I

1524
01:20:58,239 --> 01:20:59,600
some of them I don't know, Like some of the

1525
01:20:59,640 --> 01:21:03,119
figures you mentioned in our conversation, I don't know much about,

1526
01:21:03,159 --> 01:21:05,720
Like I know Filo, but some many of the others,

1527
01:21:05,760 --> 01:21:07,680
I was like, I've never heard of these people. And

1528
01:21:07,720 --> 01:21:11,279
so giving people a you know, the food to be

1529
01:21:11,319 --> 01:21:14,600
able to see that this is, like you said, this

1530
01:21:14,760 --> 01:21:17,560
is the question that's claying out now and that it's

1531
01:21:17,640 --> 01:21:22,359
not some weird esoteric question about about meaning and something

1532
01:21:22,399 --> 01:21:24,199
that happened in the late Middle Ages, but that it

1533
01:21:24,279 --> 01:21:27,600
is relevant to the re enchantment of the world right now,

1534
01:21:27,680 --> 01:21:29,680
this sense that we have that the newmaness and the

1535
01:21:29,720 --> 01:21:32,840
sacred is in some way crashing back into our reality,

1536
01:21:32,840 --> 01:21:34,920
and we need ways to be able to like you,

1537
01:21:35,239 --> 01:21:39,800
like you so well described that we need reason to

1538
01:21:39,920 --> 01:21:42,720
help us navigate it, because that's what reason is for,

1539
01:21:43,359 --> 01:21:48,199
and that there is no there isn't this like opposite

1540
01:21:48,319 --> 01:21:51,960
of intuition and reason that we that we sometimes formulate

1541
01:21:52,000 --> 01:21:55,960
in romanticism versus classicism, that type of thinking that's not

1542
01:21:56,079 --> 01:21:58,840
a traditional way of thinking. But rather this this rather

1543
01:21:58,920 --> 01:22:01,319
idea of this flow of idea that you brought up.

1544
01:22:01,359 --> 01:22:03,960
So I'm looking forward to it, and definitely I'll be

1545
01:22:04,039 --> 01:22:05,600
one of your first guests if you want me to.

1546
01:22:05,640 --> 01:22:07,840
Speaker 3: I'll be very happy to participate. I think it's a great,

1547
01:22:08,079 --> 01:22:09,159
great endeavor.

1548
01:22:08,800 --> 01:22:11,600
Speaker 2: So be great. Thanks well, thanks so much, Jonathan, and

1549
01:22:11,600 --> 01:22:12,359
thanks for having me.

1550
01:22:12,640 --> 01:22:14,560
Speaker 3: It was great. Thanks a lot, all right, everybody.

1551
01:22:15,199 --> 01:22:18,079
Speaker 4: If you enjoyed these videos and podcasts, please go to

1552
01:22:18,119 --> 01:22:20,800
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you

1553
01:22:20,840 --> 01:22:23,960
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers

1554
01:22:24,000 --> 01:22:26,960
with perks. There are apparel and books to purchase. So

1555
01:22:27,039 --> 01:22:29,159
go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you

1556
01:22:29,479 --> 01:22:30,199
for your support.