Metamodern Spirituality | Reconstructing Value (w/ Zak Stein)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- Philosopher Zak Stein joins me to discuss the "the great post-postmodern project, the reconstruction of value itself," and get into the nuances of what his framework looks like as presented in his new co-authored book First Principles & First Values. What does it mean to say that value is both fundamental and relational? How does a metaphysics of value avoid premodern pitfalls (e.g., the myth of the given, a God's-eye view/view from nowhere, etc.)? What are the challenges posed by language when trying to track value across discontinuities in the complexity stack? Here we compare notes on our respective projects and try to clarify key points.
0:00 Introduction
1:58 Summary Overview of First Principles & First Values
7:35 The Project: A Post-Postmodern Reconstruction of Value
12:44 Is Positing Value as Fundamental a Premodern Move?
32:24 "Value": Avoiding Reification
39:11 Languaging the Reconstruction: Difficulties and Diversity
48:29 The Challenge and Importance of Modern Critique of Value
52:39 "Intimacy" or "Complexity"? Seeking Normative Terminology without Anthropomorphizing
1:03:07 Shifting the Paradigm: Translation or Equivocation?
1:06:25 Panpsychist vs. Emergentist Framings
1:10:26 Shifting Telos across Scales: E.g., Dissipative Structures
1:17:56 Value and Anti-Value
1:22:04 New God: Moving towards the Infinite Intimate
1:27:21 Building the Cathedral/Temple: Living with Sacred Purpose
Book available here: www.amazon.com/First-Principl...
We already went through this. The will to power is more fundamental than the will to live. Life doesn't seek maintenance, stasis but growth, power.
Zak and M.Levin must talk soon
They both participated in our McGilchrist conference back in March.
@@Footnotes2Plato Did they interact? I am currently waiting for the video from that conference of which I signed up for
Also by the way, Matt. How about you hosting Zak for a dialogue or a series?
@@jeffbarney3584 I’m told the video should be edited and emailed out very soon! You should have already received the audio and transcripts?
@@Footnotes2Plato Yes I got those its just that there is no sub for your handsome face.
I appreciate your push back on the appearance of Zak and Marc reifying abstract essences. It was clarifying to hear Zak emphasize that first values are relational, immanent processes
It gets me further convinced Zak and Marc are proposing an archetypal theory working from perennial wisdom and modern science, in the same lane as JBP and his order and chaos dialectic, while most theories in the integral/metamodern space are developmental. Your discussion clarified basic critiques such theories have to explicitly grapple with, which was illuminating
This was great! Just the right amount of push and pull here for me. I'm keen to read both this book and yours, Brendan!
It is such a delight to hear intelligent workings on the front of reconstructing value! A deep thanks to the both of you!
I saw this and had to skip the podcast I was listening to and came here 🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I did exactly that. For the record, and to promote it and not disparage it, the podcast I will have to return to is Wiser World, with Ali Roper. Specifically part 1 of 3 on the last 100ish years in North Korea [or the Korean Peninsula]. What was yours?
always a pleasure to listen to Zak.
I missed you Zack. Ive been lost without ya, almost.
Nice bridge. Thanks guys.
Non-dual shaiva tantra would be a relevant pre-modern framework. The talk about desire or cosmoerotic reminds me of iccha-sakti. Great conversation!
Can't watch right now, unfortunately! But really happy I caught the premiere!🎉🎉
“New god” 1:26:40 YES! I call this “pangentheism” in my book
Value is the interior aspect or force of a external manifestation that projects itself in various images or ways.
Just a quick note: you should give more time to your guest.
Brendan, Keep in mind that plenty of physicists also reject the idea that space-time metrics are ontologically fundamental. They may not posit “value” as primitive, but that something precedes spacetime is presupposed even in standard “big bang” cosmology.
Yes, agreed. Much talk these days that spacetime is itself emergent. No problem with that. The question (here at least) is what that deeper primitive's relationship is to something like value.
PS: Just read Crosby's 'Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values,' and I find his framing attract if also incomplete (I think value shades down into matter, for instance). I guess I say I tend more in that direction than CosmoErotic Humanism's, but I'm seeking a sweet spot somewhere in-between.
I wonder how the connection and relationship of value and sacrifice relate on the hierarchy. Also, and the difference between having a Christian or Hindu philosophy underpinning the stack vs a Hindu or Christian theology underpin the stack?
I think the reconstructive project in large part hinges on situating value as deeper than the social level. Biology is already catching up to the idea that all living systems are inherently goal-directed and thus have values. Below that things become more debatable, but I'm inclined to see value shade down into the prebiotic register in light of the way thermodynamic principles generate ordered entities with teleonomic goals. In that context, issues of which religious context a person is operating in represents a very late frame to the value question--important, but not so much at the root of the issue.
As for the issue of sacrifice, that is also predominantly a human phenomenon, though of course animals will sacrifice for their offspring. I think there's a direct thread running from the latter to the former. The former gets the linguistic propositional overlay of Culture, so takes on new forms and meanings. I'm not sure what evidence there might be for "sacrifice" on the level of plant life. Perhaps the sharing of nutrients through root structures I've heard about could potentially fit into this topic. In all biological cases, such sacrifice would be for the benefit and viability of the gene pool broadly, not just the individual organism.
@@BrendanGrahamDempsey thanks for responding, it does seem like the linguistic metaphorical realities that are seeming increasingly fractal in this conversation and others in the space would suggest otherwise on the sacrifice aspect, but I have nothing to base that on scientifically…
And I wasn’t trying to take the philosophical down to the biological, just that in this framework, it might be helpful to consider for those of us in the ancient/devotional frame to seek a way toward religious philosophy to help with a more universal language to reach across specific religions 👍🏼
1:21:15 this is incredibly insightful shit right here
Thank you both. The Life value reference is helpful. Have you encountered Dr. Robert Humphrey's work on the dual life value theory?
1:16:00 re: embryology - I wonder if Zak has read Rudolf Steiner’s “Interdisciplinary Astronomy” lectures (GA 323)?
Getting that premier game going ; )
@40:00 This conversation is much like Mine and Angus with you. I wonder if you felt that way. I hate the recording sucked and we lost Angus in the audio. It would be fun to do a side by side.
Dr Chris Fields is putting the Markov Blanket systems model down to the quantum or any system that which persists in t time. Aspects of that get deeper than autopoeitic living systems that have purpose as intrinsic
Oh interesting. That line of research sounds right up my alley. Any reading suggestions?
@@BrendanGrahamDempsey Chris Fields has a whole lecture series up now. th-cam.com/users/liveRpOrRw4EhTo?si=VTNn11eSQhZETYyT. Emergentists like us will really get it. I’m watching them slowly because all the mind blowing moments need recovery time!
Ethical theories have long grappled with tensions between deontological frameworks focused on inviolable rules/duties and consequentialist frameworks emphasizing maximizing good outcomes. This dichotomy is increasingly strained in navigating complex real-world ethical dilemmas. The both/and logic of the monadological framework offers a way to transcend this binary in a more nuanced and context-sensitive ethical model.
Deontology vs. Consequentialism
Classical ethical theories tend to bifurcate into two opposed camps - deontological theories derived from rationally legislated moral rules, duties and inviolable constraints (e.g. Kantian ethics, divine command theory) and consequentialist theories based solely on maximizing beneficial outcomes (e.g. utilitarianism, ethical egoism).
While each perspective has merits, taken in absolute isolation they face insurmountable paradoxes. Deontological injunctions can demand egregiously suboptimal outcomes. Consequentialist calculations can justify heinous acts given particular circumstances. Binary adherence to either pole alone is intuitively and practically unsatisfying.
The both/and logic, however, allows formulating integrated ethical frameworks that cohere and synthesize deontological and consequentialist virtues using its multivalent structure:
Truth(inviolable moral duty) = 0.7
Truth(maximizing good consequences) = 0.6
○(duty, consequences) = 0.5
Here an ethical act is modeled as partially satisfying both rule-based deontological constraints and outcome-based consequentialist aims with a moderate degree of overall coherence between them.
The synthesis operator ⊕ allows formulating higher-order syncretic ethical principles conjoining these poles:
core moral duties ⊕ nobility of intended consequences = ethical action
This models ethical acts as creative synergies between respecting rationally grounded duties and promoting beneficent utility, not merely either/or.
The holistic contradiction principle further yields nuanced guidance on how to intelligently adjudicate conflicts between duties and consequences:
inviolable duty ⇒ implicit consequential contradictions requiring revision
pure consequentialism ⇒ realization of substantive moral constraints
So pure deontology implicates consequentialist contradictions that may demand flexible re-interpretation. And pure consequentialism also implicates the reality of inviolable moral side-constraints on what can count as good outcomes.
Virtue Ethics and Agent-Based Frameworks
Another polarity in ethical theory is between impartial, codified systems of rules/utilities and more context-sensitive ethics grounded in virtues, character and the narrative identities of moral agents. Both/and logic allows an elegant bridging.
We could model an ethical decision with:
Truth(universal impartial duties) = 0.5
Truth(contextualized virtuous intention) = 0.6
○(impartial rules, contextualized virtues) = 0.7
This captures the reality that impartial moral laws and agent-based virtuous phronesis are interwoven in the most coherent ethical actions, neither pole is fully separable.
The synthesis operation clarifies this relationship:
universal ethical principles ⊕ situated wise judgment = virtuous act
Allowing that impartial codified duties and situationally appropriate virtuous discernment are indeed two indissociable aspectsof the same integrated ethical reality, coconstituted in virtuous actions.
Furthermore, the holistic contradiction principle allows formally registering howvirtuous ethical character always already implicates commitments to overarching moral norms, and vice versa:
virtuous ethical exemplar ⇒ implicit universal moral grounds
impartially legislated ethical norms ⇒ demand for contextual phronesis
So virtue already depends on grounding impartial principles, and impartial principles require contextual discernment to be realized - a reciprocal integration.
From this both/and logic perspective, the most coherent ethics embraces and creative synergy between universal moral laws and situated virtuous judgment, rather than fruitlessly pitting them against each other. It's about artfully realizing the complementary unity between codified duty and concrete ethical discernment approprate to the dynamic circumstances of lived ethical life.
Ethical Particularism and Graded Properties
The both/and logic further allows modeling more fine-grained context-sensitive conceptualizations of ethical properties like goodness or rightness as intrinsically graded rather than binary all-or-nothing properties.
We could have an analysis like:
Truth(action is fully right/good) = 0.2
Truth(action is partially right/good) = 0.7
○(fully good, partially good) = 0.8
This captures a particularist moral realism whereethical evaluations are multivalent - most real ethical acts exhibit moderate degrees of goodness/rightness relative to the specifics of the context, rather than being definitively absolutely good/right or not at all.
The synthesis operator allows representing how overall evaluations of an act arise through integrating its diverse context-specific ethical properties:
act's virtuous intentions ⊕ its unintended harms = overall moral status
Providing a synthetic whole capturing the multifaceted, both positive and negative, complementary aspects that must be grasped together to discern the full ethical character of a real-world act or decision.
Furthermore, the holistic contradiction principle models howethical absolutist binary judgments already implicate graded particularist realities, and vice versa:
absolutist judgment fully right/wrong ⇒ multiplicity of relevant graded considerations
particularist ethical evaluation ⇒ underlying rationally grounded binaries
Showing how absolutist binary and particularist graded perspectives are inherently coconstituted - with neither pole capable of absolutely eliminating or subsuming the other within a reductive ethical framework.
In summary, the both/and logic and monadological framework provide powerful tools for developing a more nuanced, integrated and holistically adequate ethical model by:
1) Synthesizing deontological and consequentialist moral theories
2) Bridging impartial codified duties and context-sensitive virtues
3) Enabling particularist graded evaluations of ethical properties
4) Formalizing coconstitutive relationships between ostensible poles
Rather than forcing ethical reasoning into bifurcating absolutist/relativist camps, both/and logic allows developing a coherent pluralistic model that artfully negotiates and synthesizes the complementary demands and insights from across the ethical landscape. Its ability to rationally register both universal moral laws and concrete contextual solicitations in adjudicating real-world ethical dilemmas is its key strength.
By reflecting the intrinsically pluralistic and graded nature of ethical reality directly into its symbolic operations, the monadological framework catalyzes an expansive new paradigm for developing dynamically adequate ethical theories befitting the nuances and complexities of lived moral experience. An ethical holism replacing modernity's binary incoherencies with a wisely integrated ethical pragmatism for the 21st century.
1:18:09 the conversation Sam Harris wishes he would have been able to articulate 15 years ago
54:02 👈 this I am going to name “The BGD MetaModern Clause” ; )
You need to get Alex O'Connor on here 🙏🙏🙏☯️🙏🙏🙏
The I book
Some feedback around the 40:00 min mark. A bit flamboyant with a tad of restlessness. Usually Graham you feel a lot calmer. Please see this as an observation for your own improvement, so even if conversations are extremely stimulating you keep the ship steady and don't drown your interviewee.😊
Sensei Zak.
Where he was arguing the language was not doing justice to his theory, i think he couldn't explain how his theory stands up against your argument. It's not semantics. It's that you don't need to assume value as a sort of cosmological constant to justify the basic biochemically driven first principles to life and therefore as it scales up to more complex organisms, more complicated systems of values. That's not to say that it's all materialistic, just saying start from there if you're going to try and argue for an underlying telos as it is a fundamental problem in the theory as i understand it.!?!?!
La Illah Ila Allah
He swallows his words.
Certain aspects of reality belong to the Human Realm alone. They are not basic at all. You cannot find them in physics or biology.
I'm curious what aspects you mean?
I'm about half an hour in so far, but at this stage I don't really buy what Zak is talking about. Value as an ontological primitive seems like a pointless move when that's besides the point of what the issues around values are. We might choose to adpot values that push us towards a world that harmoniously increases subjective well being across the board of conscious creatures, but others will choose not to share that value set. People not aligned with a generally humanist value set are not going to be shifted as a result of the move being made here, and for the rest of us broadly in alignment, it seems like language games off in no-mans-land.
I'll keep listening and report further.
To me the issue is less about trying to justify why value is real and matters, and more about how we actually cultivate values within culture and see that reciprocal opening in our communities. People's patience for philosophy is pretty low, so all it takes is a one paragraph justification at the level of 'I have wants and needs, you have the same, our actions impact one another in this realm, and better synergy in this area helps us explode potential in this shared space'
Yes, I hear that. I'm also skeptical of this constructive response. As for the need, though, I do also see claims like "but values are just a social construct" as being corrosive to the development of flourishing-supporting values in culture. Some "justification" for values beyond their (post)modern critique seems warranted, though I agree that trying to posit value as an ontological primitive in some form may be overshooting the mark. Thanks for sticking it out though. :)
@BrendanGrahamDempsey yeah that's fair. I feel like it could be addressed in the broader story or framing that would be a part of a community or culture because it is likely that it can't be definitively addressed at a deeper level. I think the ground of it is that we are choosing to hold these as values and they are socially constructed. In the same way that I would support Sam Harris' inquest into moral landscape development knowing that there's likely no perfectly coherent objective morality. The perfect is the enemy of the good in these cases, and what actually cashes out is how people live their lives and how that can interact with ideas in an embodied and storied sense.
i agree Zak’s humanistic bias fails to capture the fact that they aren’t shared by all people, but I still believe a universal set of values can be articulated, but it would include ones not everyone is invested in.
the liberal-conservative divide is a great example of this - liberals are more open to the novelty and progress offered by chaos, conservatives prefer the stability of order. both principles are fundamental across scales of complexity, both need to be reconciled in unique ways in every context, but individuals vary in how much they emphasize one or the other
OK, made it to the end. Really excellent conversation, and I definitely warmed to where Zak is coming from. Most powerfully with the "let a thousand flowers bloom" approach. I think essentially we're all pointing at the same thing, but the way we speak about these things does connect better or worse based on the language. I'm sure there would be conflicts emerging as the various flowers gains steam and get closer together, but at that stage we've made enough progress for that to be a problem, so hooray for that. I resonate much more with Brendan's framing of it. To me that seems closer to minimum necessary metaphysical claims, which is an important step. The Death of God in Nietzsche's sense might also be thought of as the rebellion against unfalsafiable metaphysical claims. Aesthetically, you could point to the 'ontological primitives' of whatever, but to me that still seems like fluff compared to the obvious mattering of things from a subjective standpoint. Subjective experience is the line in the sand with regards to what matters to value, and from that a regard for the content of that experience would be a salient foundation to build from.
Another thing to bring up would be the felt sense of the coldness of the materialist/ reductionist view. The coldness comes from the emphasis on competition to produce material wealth, and the empty consumption of that to justify itself, but I think it is the practice of materialism in this way which makes it cold, not the prepositional framework itself. I'd be curious in actually seeing society finding warmth with the same language we're familiar with in this paradigm. Going back to value being socially constructed being corrosive - I think not being able to admit that as being true is corrosive too, but what is also true is that if we choose to live into values they become more real than the scary reality of socially constructed value. Basically if we want to warm the place up and relate to it in an organic way then we just need to be in relationship with the warmth as a process. Churches still do this, even though their metaphysics is still overblown.
Last thing I'd add would be the use of 'god' as a word. Like 'Intimacy', I think it works as a way for people to live with it. I use the term metaphorically as 'a collective us that we co-create by referring to in relationship with one another', and it affords being able to use the language and practices without overstepping what can reasonably be claimed from an epistemological standpoint.
@@metatypology yep I think there is broad agreement. Just conflicting where these values are on the hierarchy when there's a contest for what's most important.
The issue for me is how we actually move up to a higher order level of coordination, communication, and deliberation. I think societies should be quite involved for everyone in a process which is engaging relationally to the whole in a way that isn't competitive or transactional. Church is the prime example, but shit metaphysics, or at least too dependent on them for justifications when they don't need to rely on them to do good things, and terrible when bypassing people's epistemological basis for going beyond scripture.
Sorry, life's too short
Summary: values are real and so is *V*alue. Ok great, so what?
Not the first "spiritualist" to throw around vague word salad and so he can sell some stupid book.
Just read the Tao Te Ching - available free online. It will tell you 90% of what you need to know.