Also Brendan you might be pleased (?) to know that I actually agree with you here and disagree with Matt ~ 1:12:45 that we can have causal closure and unpredictability and emergence…but it’s because of the computational bounds Gisin talks about as helping to restore time to the t-symmetrical equations in physics! So I’m with you on this for the same reason I’m basically agnostic with respect to emergence as an ontological phenomenon…and strangely, this seems like it catches Matt in a contradiction I hope I can explore with him soon (namely his earlier comments on pluralism).
Whether noncomputable phenomena are as you say “fundamentally impossible to know in advance”, though…I don’t know about that. You cite Stu Kauffman in the next breath, and Stu is a self-professed precog. The adjacent possible isn’t simply constructed from interaction along a single arrow of time, and this is something Ken Wilber gets HUGELY wrong.
I would love it if these conversations could be created in more teachable moments way, where say every 10 minutes the conversation can be condensed (or it's opposite actually) further into more accessible languaging. One can feel the gorgeous intent of the ideas, even though obscure to less trained minds. I understand something is always lost intellectually, yet can be gained in a more somatic friendly environment. 😊
So cool that Whitehead’s ontology is basically the same as causal set theory, but even more specifically Smolin and Cortes’ “energetic causal sets”, obviously whitehead way ahead of his time. “Actual occassions” = celestial spheres, maximizing difference based on partial views of their own past. Indra’s net much…
Yeah I’m always surprised when I read Smolin’s latest work that he hadn’t delved into Whitehead yet. Not that he necessarily needs to. It is a nice confirmation when great minds independently converge on similar ideas.
@@Footnotes2Plato indeed!! I think we could probably bake a little cake, with smolin, friston, wolpert, and levin, thick smears of whitehead frosting between every layer, and we’ve basically got ourselves a whole damn reality, from the middle out and back again. No need for apple pie or whatever. Polycomputing our way right out of the blanket and into the bedroom… or something, lol. But really, the “independent convergence” (as you were noting) of these, ways of thinking, seeing, doing, seem to me to be getting more and more frequent, and obvious, and synchronous, and perhaps not so independent in a really interesting, powerful, auspicious, kind of way. Anyway, thank you for the talk, and for bringing all this kind of stuff together, and into form and view, and action, it was awesome, and a delightful listen! Excited for the sessions to come!
This discussion is much more substantial than the new one. I like it. The one thing that always bother me is that even well read people like Matt have misconception of free will. That's why I opt for clear distinction between Free Will and Agency. Robert Sapolsky don't deny "agency" in natural order of things. He is just pragmatist, he don't want to waste time on some philosophical mumbo-jambo. That doesn't mean we don't have philosophical accounts of the same position as his. For example Spinoza have the same opinion. In this circle of YT-people Bernardo Kastrup clearly stated the same position. It's nothing wrong with Sapolsky's camp. A lot reasonable people with strong arguments are there. From my observation, most of the times people are too unreflective to grasp that perspective or have religious-like, dogmatic (unconscious) reasons to deny it.
She and I and Dave Snowden had three AMAZING days of discussion last November in DC. Cynefin recorded the entire thing with multicam! Let’s petition them to actually release it. :)
I think there was a confusion on "continuous vs discontinuous". I took you to mean strong emergence happens at some level of complexity which would be discontinuious. Matt thought you simply meant continuity in physical models. I am with matt on this. The issue turns on the concept under discussion, for something like agency/intentionality/normativity i would say it goes all the way down simply because reasons can't "emerge" out of causes. There is also the historical presupposition of Western philosophy of identity of thought and being. Doesn't meant you need to accept the claim but there are a lot of skeptical binds you end up in if that claim is rejected.
Abstracted self perception seems to be definitively different. You can get emergent complexity from very simple automata, but once your agents are applying game theory to their decisions the rule set itself complexifies.
Loved, LOVED! this conversation. Particularly 23min-34min Appreciate Brendan’s read on the metaphysical categories being a type of abstraction or a kind of hermeneutic lens. It does seem to me it’s wise to hold this in mind to avoid a kind of proliferation of “real” entities. Also loved Matt’s explanation of Whitehead in that exchange, as it helped clarify Whitehead’s languaging. Not sure if you are familiar with Tomlinson’s work with deflationary ontology, I’d be curious to see if it addresses any of these questions for either of you. I came to these questions through Indo-Tibetan Madyamika debates where they are trying to work through some of these tensions from an anti-realist position. There’s a lot of great stuff there. So glad that there was a conversation where Brendan didn’t have to ask would we have seen Jesus actually coming out of a tomb. 😉
this was good. I would argue that phenomenology is probably a good approximation of modern metaphysics. Or, rather, the phenomenological aspect is potentially an important contribution to the metaphysical discourse.
The helpless stammering of the two brave professionals says everything about their desperate attempt to formulate a somewhat meaningful statement about the overwhelming fullness of existence.
that's """metamodernism""" for you. infinite(ly) vacuous speculative pseudo-intellectual onanism. while there's nothing inherently wrong with speculation, metamodern dudes (almost always young white dudes into a 'meaning crisis') are so obnoxious and culty about it. it's a complex vibe. a vibe of exalted riffing, trying to integrate and synthesize everything that leads to incoherence, obscurity and occasionally some trivial conclusions like 'i'll exercise, not kms, eat well, meditate, learn interesting stuff, be open, not jump to conclusions about reality...' but dressed up in new special ingroup language that makes it sound like some super-agile ultra-syncretic cognitive grappling with reality has taken place that's like discovered intrinsic meaning to existence.
@@real_pattern this seems unnecessarily antagonistic. Philosophy is speculative by nature and the pragmatic cashing out of concepts will ultimately be determined if other people find it helpful in discourse. Also, not sure who you are calling "young". AFAIK both of them have phds and have been doing this for 10+ years.
17:11 "metaphysics is a search for scale-free categories" that's very well articulated.
Also Brendan you might be pleased (?) to know that I actually agree with you here and disagree with Matt ~ 1:12:45 that we can have causal closure and unpredictability and emergence…but it’s because of the computational bounds Gisin talks about as helping to restore time to the t-symmetrical equations in physics! So I’m with you on this for the same reason I’m basically agnostic with respect to emergence as an ontological phenomenon…and strangely, this seems like it catches Matt in a contradiction I hope I can explore with him soon (namely his earlier comments on pluralism).
Whether noncomputable phenomena are as you say “fundamentally impossible to know in advance”, though…I don’t know about that. You cite Stu Kauffman in the next breath, and Stu is a self-professed precog. The adjacent possible isn’t simply constructed from interaction along a single arrow of time, and this is something Ken Wilber gets HUGELY wrong.
Very glad to finally hear you suggest that you’re not totally “predetermined” ;) on whether emergence is epistemic or ontic.
I would love it if these conversations could be created in more teachable moments way, where say every 10 minutes the conversation can be condensed (or it's opposite actually) further into more accessible languaging.
One can feel the gorgeous intent of the ideas, even though obscure to less trained minds. I understand something is always lost intellectually, yet can be gained in a more somatic friendly environment. 😊
Loved this discussion! Very excited for the next discussion!
Matt is right about the casual closure part. It is about physical event having physical causes so it rules out formal and final causes.
So cool that Whitehead’s ontology is basically the same as causal set theory, but even more specifically Smolin and Cortes’ “energetic causal sets”, obviously whitehead way ahead of his time. “Actual occassions” = celestial spheres, maximizing difference based on partial views of their own past. Indra’s net much…
Yeah I’m always surprised when I read Smolin’s latest work that he hadn’t delved into Whitehead yet. Not that he necessarily needs to. It is a nice confirmation when great minds independently converge on similar ideas.
@@Footnotes2Plato indeed!! I think we could probably bake a little cake, with smolin, friston, wolpert, and levin, thick smears of whitehead frosting between every layer, and we’ve basically got ourselves a whole damn reality, from the middle out and back again. No need for apple pie or whatever. Polycomputing our way right out of the blanket and into the bedroom… or something, lol. But really, the “independent convergence” (as you were noting) of these, ways of thinking, seeing, doing, seem to me to be getting more and more frequent, and obvious, and synchronous, and perhaps not so independent in a really interesting, powerful, auspicious, kind of way.
Anyway, thank you for the talk, and for bringing all this kind of stuff together, and into form and view, and action, it was awesome, and a delightful listen! Excited for the sessions to come!
This discussion is much more substantial than the new one. I like it. The one thing that always bother me is that even well read people like Matt have misconception of free will. That's why I opt for clear distinction between Free Will and Agency. Robert Sapolsky don't deny "agency" in natural order of things. He is just pragmatist, he don't want to waste time on some philosophical mumbo-jambo. That doesn't mean we don't have philosophical accounts of the same position as his. For example Spinoza have the same opinion. In this circle of YT-people Bernardo Kastrup clearly stated the same position. It's nothing wrong with Sapolsky's camp. A lot reasonable people with strong arguments are there. From my observation, most of the times people are too unreflective to grasp that perspective or have religious-like, dogmatic (unconscious) reasons to deny it.
If you could make it happen I would LOVE to hear you chat to Alicia Juarerro some time, Brendan!
She and I and Dave Snowden had three AMAZING days of discussion last November in DC. Cynefin recorded the entire thing with multicam! Let’s petition them to actually release it. :)
I think there was a confusion on "continuous vs discontinuous". I took you to mean strong emergence happens at some level of complexity which would be discontinuious. Matt thought you simply meant continuity in physical models.
I am with matt on this. The issue turns on the concept under discussion, for something like agency/intentionality/normativity i would say it goes all the way down simply because reasons can't "emerge" out of causes. There is also the historical presupposition of Western philosophy of identity of thought and being. Doesn't meant you need to accept the claim but there are a lot of skeptical binds you end up in if that claim is rejected.
100% see also my comment elsewhere in this section
Abstracted self perception seems to be definitively different. You can get emergent complexity from very simple automata, but once your agents are applying game theory to their decisions the rule set itself complexifies.
Loved, LOVED! this conversation.
Particularly 23min-34min
Appreciate Brendan’s read on the metaphysical categories being a type of abstraction or a kind of hermeneutic lens.
It does seem to me it’s wise to hold this in mind to avoid a kind of proliferation of “real” entities.
Also loved Matt’s explanation of Whitehead in that exchange, as it helped clarify Whitehead’s languaging.
Not sure if you are familiar with Tomlinson’s work with deflationary ontology, I’d be curious to see if it addresses any of these questions for either of you.
I came to these questions through Indo-Tibetan Madyamika debates where they are trying to work through some of these tensions from an anti-realist position. There’s a lot of great stuff there.
So glad that there was a conversation where Brendan didn’t have to ask would we have seen Jesus actually coming out of a tomb. 😉
is this the first instance in which 'physics, metaphysics, meta-metaphysics' has been coined by Mr Segall [?]
this was good. I would argue that phenomenology is probably a good approximation of modern metaphysics. Or, rather, the phenomenological aspect is potentially an important contribution to the metaphysical discourse.
min 13:30
Brendan, talk to Bernardo Kastrup
The helpless stammering of the two brave professionals
says everything about their desperate attempt to
formulate a somewhat meaningful statement about
the overwhelming fullness of existence.
Both guys go on and on hair spliting without saying anything.
I disagree. I'm learning some things in Whiteheadian philosophy & I'm only 25 minutes in. Js.
that's """metamodernism""" for you. infinite(ly) vacuous speculative pseudo-intellectual onanism.
while there's nothing inherently wrong with speculation, metamodern dudes (almost always young white dudes into a 'meaning crisis') are so obnoxious and culty about it.
it's a complex vibe. a vibe of exalted riffing, trying to integrate and synthesize everything that leads to incoherence, obscurity and occasionally some trivial conclusions like 'i'll exercise, not kms, eat well, meditate, learn interesting stuff, be open, not jump to conclusions about reality...' but dressed up in new special ingroup language that makes it sound like some super-agile ultra-syncretic cognitive grappling with reality has taken place that's like discovered intrinsic meaning to existence.
@@real_pattern this seems unnecessarily antagonistic. Philosophy is speculative by nature and the pragmatic cashing out of concepts will ultimately be determined if other people find it helpful in discourse.
Also, not sure who you are calling "young". AFAIK both of them have phds and have been doing this for 10+ years.
@@real_patternThat’s philosophy for you. Why won’t Socrates just shut up?!
Metaphysics is a coping mechanism for people that are too smart to believe in religion, but too scared to accept reality.
Whose reality?
What are you basing that off of