Great video David, got me thinking on multiple levels. Most deeply, how this can be woven into a texture that encompasses humanity's grander narrative in AI. I.e. if metamodernism seeks to reconcile the tensions between the universal truths pursued by modernism and the relativistic skepticism of postmodernism by (as you said mid-way) proposing an emergent, complex understanding of reality that draws insights from multiple perspectives - could this convergent circumscription of truth from myriad viewpoints be seen as generating a kind of meta-narrative itself? In other words, even as metamodernism departs from both modernism's embrace of overarching explanations and postmodernism's rejection of them, (as per your bit by the river) might its emphasis on finding a middle ground between these poles through acknowledging the interconnectedness of reality across cultural boundaries constitute a form of totalizing theory, a grand narrative in its own right about the nature of truth and meaning? If so, how does this implicitly universalizing tendency of metamodernism differ from the top-down essentialism it ostensibly moves beyond, and how can it maintain its position as a mere "middle ground" between modernist and postmodernist approaches if it makes strong claims about the fundamental structures of reality and knowledge? These tensions seem central to metamodernism's still-developing identity (that we all shape through content).
This is a great and thoughtful question. I obviously don't have a complete answer, but the heuristic that I'm following right now is expanding the conversation with expanded definitions. For instance, by constructing a better lexicon for discussion, we can begin to expand the conversation. Introducing new definitions such as meta-narratives vs grand narratives, and another concept that I'm working on called "ontological containers" allows us move beyond some of the circularity in modern discourse - which honestly is the primary reason I am into philosophy. As the ancient Chinese philosophers asserted, one must start by rectifying definitions. But as our world has expanded (ontologically, epistemically, spiritually) old definitions have failed. So, specifically to your point, the conversation about universal truth and meaning must be predicated upon an agreement (or at least acknowledgement) that there are indeed different ontological containers (models of reality). Right now, neither science nor philosophy has a good framework for approaching these discussions, but I was inspired by my physicist friend who said that all conversations in physics must start with the question "Which interpretation are you using?" i.e. Copenhagen interpretation, etc. I realized that we need a philosophical equivalent. Unfortunately, I've found a lot of resistance to this from philosophers trained under the postmodernist tradition e.g. a resistance to defining large containers, and instead a preference to split hairs over epistemically and ontologically microscopic concepts. It's almost as if it is taboo or anathema to discuss reality in broad swaths.
@@Systems.Thinking Looking forward to the ontological containers video! Maybe even a series on how you 'meta-analyse' the need for such meta-analysis. A Wittgensteinian adventure potentially, paying indirect homage to a Confucian-style Rectification of Names.
For me, it's more like layers of interpreting reality. Like a piece of land can be depicted in different ways, the traditional road map, the topological map, a heat map, map of biospheres/geographical zones, etc. All of those are interpretations/representations of reality and in order to be able to decribe reality as best as possible, we need as many representations as possible (or at least, as many as we are able to mentally juggle).
This was a really great video, Dave. Nice work. I think it might be important to mention that there's a lot of (rather desperate atp) work being done in the "Liminal" or metamodern spaces these days which is trying to figure out how to build new grand or meta narratives that feature the tremendous utility and power of these stories/systems not only as psychotechnologies for massive human coordination and unity but also as comfort/psychological closure BUT with the sort of safeguards that the post-modernists and the masses of lay people influenced by them who are DAMN RIGHT to note that when you give humans a story that talks about truth, goodness, and beauty as though they're objective properties of the universe, they'll take that stuff and use it against against each other in horrifying and utterly barbaric ways. SO, the massive power and utility of the nearly magical and "moving" story that explains almost everything BUT can't be weaponized against other people who have a diff take on the story or a diff story all together. :) People are working hard on this. Smart people. People who really care a LOT. Somebody further down the comments mentioned Schmachtenberger and his crew and how they're right about pretty much everything but at the same, they don't seem to offer any actionable answers about what to do about it all. I agree with this. I like Schmachtenberger a lot and used to avidly listen to basically everything he said. I'm less moved by him now than I was partially because I don't see his narrative as having the magic spark that can get enough people actually moving AND, (and this is just about me and my deep need and hope for humanity) I don't hardly ever hear Schmachtenberger or anyone in like him ever talk about us getting off this rock and into the stars in a big way unless they're talking mad shit about people like Elon and Bezos and how they're a-holes who want to fly up to space and leave us all behind. When I get a strong impression from a commentator that suggests to me they don't care about "Fully Automated Luxury Space _______" and think that a great and majestic diaspora to the stars is some kinda dreamer bullshit, it's hard for me not to tune them out right away. Notice the language I used. "fully automated luxry space blah blah" and "great majestic diaspora" etc. I NEED this in my narratives. I NEED this hope. I NEED the hope of that amazing freedom and scope combined with that power. This is grand or meta narrative. :)
I think a diagram would help me. I do love that I was just watching the Damien Walter videos about Star Trek and Miles Morales yesterday, which led to a conversation about meta-modernism. I open TH-cam today and lo and behold, D-Shap's in the woods again! ;]
Here is my meta-narrative: The primordial substrate of reality is Logic. Nothing existing or theorized contradicts the laws of logical cause and effect.
Metanarratives are exactly how I see the world. We all walk around with our interpretation of the truth and our narratives and we project them onto everything we experience. Like a 360 degrees projector from ourselves. And every person carries a bit of truth in their worldview. And put those worldviews together and we are getting closer to the objective truth, which in reality is just very complex. Reality is complex and reality is comprised of enormous complex systems. And when we pool our knowledge or our small truths of the world, we can get closer to somethings that represents the actual complex truth.
An is is an ought without an ought through the observation of what is, quantum collapses closing the causal loop of knowing what is and its cause of what is understood.
My metanarrative or metaphysics: There are many, many levels of organization in the universe, and all of them are equally real. Unwarranted reductionism and unwarranted holism are both bunk.
Good explanations Dave! I find Daniel Schmachtenberger's meta-narrative about where we are the most compelling in terms of accuracy and orientation. Fuck knows how to resolve any of that though. The other idea I've been bouncing around as a maybe smaller scale narrative is explaining "God" as a shared intersubjective self that we co-create. I think this is essentially how religious people relate to this concept, albeit with a whole bunch of bad metaphysics and unfalsifiable claims. I think taking the essence and aspiring to find that between secular people might be a sort of generative story for people to engage with. People need to be more serious than they are about the modern world. I don't know what the hell people are doing with their time and attention, but it isn't making them very conscious of what's going on.
![Forcing Functions - Constraints, Affordances, Bounds, and Systems Behavior [SYSTEMS THINKING]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/optxZVxt9Ao/mqdefault.jpg)
The background noise & the brown river makes it look like you're in the Amazon Jungle
It was the cicadas
Looks more like North Carolina
Great video David, got me thinking on multiple levels. Most deeply, how this can be woven into a texture that encompasses humanity's grander narrative in AI.
I.e. if metamodernism seeks to reconcile the tensions between the universal truths pursued by modernism and the relativistic skepticism of postmodernism by (as you said mid-way) proposing an emergent, complex understanding of reality that draws insights from multiple perspectives - could this convergent circumscription of truth from myriad viewpoints be seen as generating a kind of meta-narrative itself?
In other words, even as metamodernism departs from both modernism's embrace of overarching explanations and postmodernism's rejection of them, (as per your bit by the river) might its emphasis on finding a middle ground between these poles through acknowledging the interconnectedness of reality across cultural boundaries constitute a form of totalizing theory, a grand narrative in its own right about the nature of truth and meaning? If so, how does this implicitly universalizing tendency of metamodernism differ from the top-down essentialism it ostensibly moves beyond, and how can it maintain its position as a mere "middle ground" between modernist and postmodernist approaches if it makes strong claims about the fundamental structures of reality and knowledge? These tensions seem central to metamodernism's still-developing identity (that we all shape through content).
This is a great and thoughtful question. I obviously don't have a complete answer, but the heuristic that I'm following right now is expanding the conversation with expanded definitions. For instance, by constructing a better lexicon for discussion, we can begin to expand the conversation. Introducing new definitions such as meta-narratives vs grand narratives, and another concept that I'm working on called "ontological containers" allows us move beyond some of the circularity in modern discourse - which honestly is the primary reason I am into philosophy. As the ancient Chinese philosophers asserted, one must start by rectifying definitions. But as our world has expanded (ontologically, epistemically, spiritually) old definitions have failed. So, specifically to your point, the conversation about universal truth and meaning must be predicated upon an agreement (or at least acknowledgement) that there are indeed different ontological containers (models of reality). Right now, neither science nor philosophy has a good framework for approaching these discussions, but I was inspired by my physicist friend who said that all conversations in physics must start with the question "Which interpretation are you using?" i.e. Copenhagen interpretation, etc. I realized that we need a philosophical equivalent. Unfortunately, I've found a lot of resistance to this from philosophers trained under the postmodernist tradition e.g. a resistance to defining large containers, and instead a preference to split hairs over epistemically and ontologically microscopic concepts. It's almost as if it is taboo or anathema to discuss reality in broad swaths.
@@Systems.Thinking Looking forward to the ontological containers video! Maybe even a series on how you 'meta-analyse' the need for such meta-analysis. A Wittgensteinian adventure potentially, paying indirect homage to a Confucian-style Rectification of Names.
For me, it's more like layers of interpreting reality. Like a piece of land can be depicted in different ways, the traditional road map, the topological map, a heat map, map of biospheres/geographical zones, etc. All of those are interpretations/representations of reality and in order to be able to decribe reality as best as possible, we need as many representations as possible (or at least, as many as we are able to mentally juggle).
This was a really great video, Dave. Nice work.
I think it might be important to mention that there's a lot of (rather desperate atp) work being done in the "Liminal" or metamodern spaces these days which is trying to figure out how to build new grand or meta narratives that feature the tremendous utility and power of these stories/systems not only as psychotechnologies for massive human coordination and unity but also as comfort/psychological closure BUT with the sort of safeguards that the post-modernists and the masses of lay people influenced by them who are DAMN RIGHT to note that when you give humans a story that talks about truth, goodness, and beauty as though they're objective properties of the universe, they'll take that stuff and use it against against each other in horrifying and utterly barbaric ways.
SO, the massive power and utility of the nearly magical and "moving" story that explains almost everything BUT can't be weaponized against other people who have a diff take on the story or a diff story all together. :)
People are working hard on this. Smart people. People who really care a LOT.
Somebody further down the comments mentioned Schmachtenberger and his crew and how they're right about pretty much everything but at the same, they don't seem to offer any actionable answers about what to do about it all. I agree with this. I like Schmachtenberger a lot and used to avidly listen to basically everything he said. I'm less moved by him now than I was partially because I don't see his narrative as having the magic spark that can get enough people actually moving AND, (and this is just about me and my deep need and hope for humanity) I don't hardly ever hear Schmachtenberger or anyone in like him ever talk about us getting off this rock and into the stars in a big way unless they're talking mad shit about people like Elon and Bezos and how they're a-holes who want to fly up to space and leave us all behind. When I get a strong impression from a commentator that suggests to me they don't care about "Fully Automated Luxury Space _______" and think that a great and majestic diaspora to the stars is some kinda dreamer bullshit, it's hard for me not to tune them out right away. Notice the language I used. "fully automated luxry space blah blah" and "great majestic diaspora" etc. I NEED this in my narratives. I NEED this hope. I NEED the hope of that amazing freedom and scope combined with that power. This is grand or meta narrative. :)
What's the difference between hypernarratives and meta-hypernarratives?
Very helpful! I like your precision.
I think a diagram would help me.
I do love that I was just watching the Damien Walter videos about Star Trek and Miles Morales yesterday, which led to a conversation about meta-modernism. I open TH-cam today and lo and behold, D-Shap's in the woods again! ;]
Here is my meta-narrative:
The primordial substrate of reality is Logic.
Nothing existing or theorized contradicts the laws of logical cause and effect.
that’s only in the realm of symbols; there are pre-verbal pre-symbolic states of consciousness - those don’t have logic
@@caffeinum I'm not talking about Logic from a simbolic perspective, but from the laws of causality.
Metanarratives are exactly how I see the world. We all walk around with our interpretation of the truth and our narratives and we project them onto everything we experience. Like a 360 degrees projector from ourselves. And every person carries a bit of truth in their worldview. And put those worldviews together and we are getting closer to the objective truth, which in reality is just very complex. Reality is complex and reality is comprised of enormous complex systems. And when we pool our knowledge or our small truths of the world, we can get closer to somethings that represents the actual complex truth.
An is is an ought without an ought through the observation of what is, quantum collapses closing the causal loop of knowing what is and its cause of what is understood.
In all srsnss though, I'm a big fan of John M. Smart's "Evo-Devo Universe". He's one of the most underrated futurists.
My metanarrative or metaphysics: There are many, many levels of organization in the universe, and all of them are equally real. Unwarranted reductionism and unwarranted holism are both bunk.
Good explanations Dave! I find Daniel Schmachtenberger's meta-narrative about where we are the most compelling in terms of accuracy and orientation. Fuck knows how to resolve any of that though. The other idea I've been bouncing around as a maybe smaller scale narrative is explaining "God" as a shared intersubjective self that we co-create. I think this is essentially how religious people relate to this concept, albeit with a whole bunch of bad metaphysics and unfalsifiable claims. I think taking the essence and aspiring to find that between secular people might be a sort of generative story for people to engage with. People need to be more serious than they are about the modern world. I don't know what the hell people are doing with their time and attention, but it isn't making them very conscious of what's going on.
All trends tend to evolve or die 😎🤖
Too concrete. Can you make it more specialized and abstract… wtf