An excellent conversation, thanks guys! As a physicist, working for decades in IT industry but still in touch with my beloved physics and yet with body oriented psychotherapeutical training and some zazen practice as a background i find difficult sometimes to talk with molecular biologists and moreover doctors, neuro folks ... basically people with engineering style of background, about what s actual picture of world (and us within) because underlying naive reductionism and determinism. I would say after quantum revolution and relativistic shift of paradigm, still from different reason, it s not an easy task to comprehend how profoundly picture of the world changed. I would completely agree on Philip s remark that trying to use classical analogies makes things worse - they re producing a lot of illusion of understanding. What we would say about deterministic materialistic dogmatism when our best - in terms of experimental based corroboration - theoretical model is quantum field theory which provides us with unified mechanism for matter and interactions - just different degrees of freedom? Symmetries, quantum description, potentionality - these are correct words to talk in. What seems for us as basic emerges out of level of understanding. Watching carefully into the structure as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen stated and Schrodinger pinpointed decompose our notion of "reality" to something much more interesting. To talk about this, of course, requires new language and in popular way other stories you mentioned repeatedly- which i do not see around yet, even when models are many decades old now. And people like David Mermin in his Oppenheimer lecture tries hard i guess th-cam.com/video/ta09WXiUqcQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ObyQSbtFV6p5Pjzb. Anyway, whenever dogmatic reductionists tries hard they inevitably ends - if they are honest - on level of basic physics. And that ends up with dynamics - time, space, matter, causation. Quite interesting is to reflect upon shift in understanding of causation as discussed - with appreciation of Nagarjuna s philosophy - by Carlo Rovelli in this seminar in Yale th-cam.com/video/jCRBmRp7eLs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zSkBJ6NZqfr8Polt. Speaking of understanding information in actual physics laws - they are already there. In fact modern understanding of information in our world comes from work of Ludwig Boltzmann and many more great minds. Still we tends to interpret - maybe because it s used in very reduced and primitive way in our information technologies and popularized in this way. But in clear way fundamentality of information is mentioned by Nobel prize laureate Anton Zeilinger speech th-cam.com/video/ct2uWbI2vF8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZCA3SahTbQZfX4lg . I m greatful that you re vocal about usual dogmas and misinterpretations and "myths" of biologists, doctors or neuroscientists, which has nothing to do with actual science still hardcoded in education and popularisation of many kind. I would say that interplay between empirical emergent level (when i talk with client about his experience e.g.) and this "understanding" which tries to "explain" and reduce rich phenomenal stuff (like neuroscientist tries reduce psychological phenomenons just to electrical states of brain which they could measure) in any cost to relatively primitive mechanical model which as we know ultimately can t work, seems to me like bizzare religious way to protect the belief. Anyway, i will recommend this discussion to anybody who wants to step beyond popular dogmas and stay on serious level of understanding.
Oh, dear me, not Hiroshige. (Please excuse my strong language there.) If you look at it, you'll see that it's not the sort of ukiyo-e woodblock printing of the age of Hokusai and Hiroshige. It's a picture called "Spring at a Hot Spring” by Yoshida Hiroshi, and is in the Shin-hanga style of woodblock printing; that was a style influenced by Western oil painting, which used dryer, thicker paper successively overlain with multiple layers of printing. Yoshida lived from 1876 to 1950 and was one of the great figures in both the recovery and the further development of the art of woodblock prints.
I loved this discussion. I'm interested, do you think that the concept of the monad in Leibniz might be a fruitful basis for further exploration? I feel like it might be, especially concerning three elements: 1. Substance isn't passive and merely acted upon, but instead a movement as such, with information and matter being intrinsically linked, therefore escaping the "intelligent design"-trap of deism and a cartesian ghost in the machine. 2. It escapes determinism/libertarian dichotomy just as much as the mechanical/teleological dichotomy by identifying the monad as a perspectivist projection of the whole (the harmony of the parts and the whole is guaranteed through the fact that every monad is indirectly connected through God with every other monad) 3. It can harmonize top-down models and bottom-up models, because the organism is hylomorphic. Neither soul nor body take precedent. This also allows the affirmation of identity as an unstable process, while remaining a real expression of the eternal soul. Of course the concept needs some overhaul. In some key aspects, Leibniz remains to much committed to the mechanical philosophy of his time (understandable, considering its explanatory power) and therefore makes the distance between matter and soul too great, instead of conceiving of matter as inherently agential. But i still think there is a lot of useful concepts in Leibniz. Another question: Do you see value in Karen Barad and their concept of agential materialism? I think, they offer some promising ideas which might be usefully applied to concepts like the incarnation that should be fleshed out (Catherine Keller already engaged to some extent with their ideas, but not to a large extent)
This conversation reminded me of a quote from neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield 'Where is the subject, and where is the object, if you are operating on your own brain?' 🧠
56:20 I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sapolsky in more detail. I read his book, and found it quite unconvincing, but every time I try to explain why to one of his fanboys, they always seem to assume that I disagree because of emotional reasons, when I genuinely think there are some serious intellectual problems with Sapolsky's arguments.
After watching this I grabbed a copy of Beyond Weird. Dr. Hart is correct that Dr. Ball is an excellent communicator of these concepts (not that that was ever in doubt). First time I’ve read someone who doesn’t continue to impose classical or intuitive images onto my mind as a way to “get” quantum mechanics, but instead is creating space between and clear distinctions around what it means to say that measurements can not tell us about the states of quantum objects. Even still, it’s interesting how I can’t help but continue trying to come up with images that make sense of it - fascinating and at the same time frustrating (but perhaps in a necessary way).
Insightful talk. Have you written about Sapolsky? Of late, he’s been paraded around popular magazines and podcasts as presenting “science’s” answer to the question of free will (that we unquestionably don’t have it). I’d love to see someone push back on the specific claims he is making.
When I have a chance, I may. But a list of his basic logical errors would probably be longer than the book itself. It's an absolute disaster. And, as Philip says, even the science is very shady in many places.
@@leavesinthewind7441While I'd love to see you tear into his pop scientific claims, I can save you the time--from what I've seen, his case against free will is analogous to analyzing a game of billiards by examining the material constituents of the balls and mapping the physics behind the motion of each one, while fully ignoring that there are thinking agents determining their motion. That is, he arrives at the conclusion that there is no free will, by deliberately ignoring voliontal agency from the outset insofar as it does not neatly feet into bare material structures which, to him, are the pure fundament of reality.
@@leavesinthewind7441he essentially analyzes a game of billiards via its atomic structure and the physics behind the ball movement, while completely disregarding the fact that volitional agents are the ones determining the motion. This is what every materialist determinist does but on a cosmic level.
I'm more convinced every day that curriculum centering the history of ideas and the detailing of paradigm shifts should be the primary way of doing public education. His books would have been infinitely better than the shitty textbooks i learned from in school. If I get the opportunity to homeschool my son, I'll be assigning his books.
I have a couple of Philip's books and they are well written. The problem I have is in biomedicine and other disciplines such as psychiatry the scientific method is not being followed and certain scientists and philosophers have pointed this out.
@@thebasis1704 According to the psychiatrists in the documentary I mentioned earlier, psychiatry is a pseudoscience because there is no test for mental illness. If they have not worked out how to apply the scientific method to psychiatry then I would be unable to do so. My training is in Law.
What scientific method in particular? I think I'm not mistaken in saying that there are multiple different "scientific methods" as different fields require different approaches (even within the hard sciences). Has there ever been one definitive "scientific method"?
Perhaps I misspoke. The agency he proposes transcends nature, but I think it’s argument would apply either way, to something transcendent or something imminent in the natural order.
Again, he imagines that agency as one that explains what looks like mechanical complexity in a material order that he believes is not capable of order in se. He's right about the presence of rational agency, but seeing the question is not the same thing as understanding its logical contents. It still constitutes a dualism, even if that dualism is in some sense "immanent." And a dualism is always a failed solution.
Yes, I would agree with that. I favor a non-.dual Solution myself, having been employed by Indian thought. But I think a solution still awaits us. We have traditional models on the one hand, and we have contemporary scientific models on the other integrating. These may take some time and effort beyond my 78 year old brain.
Hello Mr Bentley-Hart, I was wondering on how existential a threat you think Chat-GPT combined with cooperate capitalism is? Also similarly what do you think of the tech-bro’s claim to be able to make super human intelligence. Thanks !
Wish I'd had the ability this whole time to communicate with you in a better fashion than I have previously. I could make the argument that God predestined our conversations, but many would then view me either as a heretic or as someone who wants to rock the authoritarian boat. Hopefully, I'm neither of the two possibilities. I get it, though. I'm not fond of titles, just as many others have told me, but being a fellow Universalist matters to me, in the general idea of Christ saving all, so the end result means the most for myself. I'd like to interview you at some point, even though, I'm fairly overwhelmed by the thought of it. I do hope and believe in a much better world and for us eventually, in that, I think we will ultimately understand one another without all the heartache, confusion, and self deprecating state of our human condition. Perfection will never be a full reality, but I view that as a perk rather than not. If you've gotten this far, then I must be saying something important (dependent upon who you speak to, of course)!
My guess is that you objected to the theology of someone like Stephen Meyer, rather than to his scientific argument, that it requires intelligence to explain evolutionary developments of DNA. I don’t share his religious beliefs myself, but I do think he makes a cogent argument for the presence, in the natural world of some sort of purposeful, intelligent agency.
The basic insight is right, but the arguments as well as their metaphysical premises are all mechanistic, which leaves a vast metaphysical lacuna in the picture.
@@leavesinthewind7441Couldn't agree more. Even Aquinas, the daddy of scholasticism, recognized that the argument from the appearance of natural teleology isn't mechanistic.
I understood 0.3% of this conversation and still enjoyed it
Well, that was the best 0.3%.
An excellent conversation, thanks guys! As a physicist, working for decades in IT industry but still in touch with my beloved physics and yet with body oriented psychotherapeutical training and some zazen practice as a background i find difficult sometimes to talk with molecular biologists and moreover doctors, neuro folks ... basically people with engineering style of background, about what s actual picture of world (and us within) because underlying naive reductionism and determinism. I would say after quantum revolution and relativistic shift of paradigm, still from different reason, it s not an easy task to comprehend how profoundly picture of the world changed. I would completely agree on Philip s remark that trying to use classical analogies makes things worse - they re producing a lot of illusion of understanding. What we would say about deterministic materialistic dogmatism when our best - in terms of experimental based corroboration - theoretical model is quantum field theory which provides us with unified mechanism for matter and interactions - just different degrees of freedom? Symmetries, quantum description, potentionality - these are correct words to talk in. What seems for us as basic emerges out of level of understanding. Watching carefully into the structure as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen stated and Schrodinger pinpointed decompose our notion of "reality" to something much more interesting. To talk about this, of course, requires new language and in popular way other stories you mentioned repeatedly- which i do not see around yet, even when models are many decades old now. And people like David Mermin in his Oppenheimer lecture tries hard i guess th-cam.com/video/ta09WXiUqcQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ObyQSbtFV6p5Pjzb. Anyway, whenever dogmatic reductionists tries hard they inevitably ends - if they are honest - on level of basic physics. And that ends up with dynamics - time, space, matter, causation. Quite interesting is to reflect upon shift in understanding of causation as discussed - with appreciation of Nagarjuna s philosophy - by Carlo Rovelli in this seminar in Yale th-cam.com/video/jCRBmRp7eLs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zSkBJ6NZqfr8Polt. Speaking of understanding information in actual physics laws - they are already there. In fact modern understanding of information in our world comes from work of Ludwig Boltzmann and many more great minds. Still we tends to interpret - maybe because it s used in very reduced and primitive way in our information technologies and popularized in this way. But in clear way fundamentality of information is mentioned by Nobel prize laureate Anton Zeilinger speech th-cam.com/video/ct2uWbI2vF8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZCA3SahTbQZfX4lg . I m greatful that you re vocal about usual dogmas and misinterpretations and "myths" of biologists, doctors or neuroscientists, which has nothing to do with actual science still hardcoded in education and popularisation of many kind. I would say that interplay between empirical emergent level (when i talk with client about his experience e.g.) and this "understanding" which tries to "explain" and reduce rich phenomenal stuff (like neuroscientist tries reduce psychological phenomenons just to electrical states of brain which they could measure) in any cost to relatively primitive mechanical model which as we know ultimately can t work, seems to me like bizzare religious way to protect the belief. Anyway, i will recommend this discussion to anybody who wants to step beyond popular dogmas and stay on serious level of understanding.
A terrific discussion. The question of agency at the molecular level is fascinating.
As light relief he wrote about the elements and alchemy!
I couldn't even write a page about how levers work!!
Such a lovely background behind DBH. I'm going to guess Hiroshige.
Oh, dear me, not Hiroshige. (Please excuse my strong language there.) If you look at it, you'll see that it's not the sort of ukiyo-e woodblock printing of the age of Hokusai and Hiroshige. It's a picture called "Spring at a Hot Spring” by Yoshida Hiroshi, and is in the Shin-hanga style of woodblock printing; that was a style influenced by Western oil painting, which used dryer, thicker paper successively overlain with multiple layers of printing. Yoshida lived from 1876 to 1950 and was one of the great figures in both the recovery and the further development of the art of woodblock prints.
Oh I see. The tree branch reaching over in the foreground lead me to guess that it might be. Very nice in any case.@@leavesinthewind7441
I loved this discussion. I'm interested, do you think that the concept of the monad in Leibniz might be a fruitful basis for further exploration? I feel like it might be, especially concerning three elements:
1. Substance isn't passive and merely acted upon, but instead a movement as such, with information and matter being intrinsically linked, therefore escaping the "intelligent design"-trap of deism and a cartesian ghost in the machine.
2. It escapes determinism/libertarian dichotomy just as much as the mechanical/teleological dichotomy by identifying the monad as a perspectivist projection of the whole (the harmony of the parts and the whole is guaranteed through the fact that every monad is indirectly connected through God with every other monad)
3. It can harmonize top-down models and bottom-up models, because the organism is hylomorphic. Neither soul nor body take precedent. This also allows the affirmation of identity as an unstable process, while remaining a real expression of the eternal soul.
Of course the concept needs some overhaul. In some key aspects, Leibniz remains to much committed to the mechanical philosophy of his time (understandable, considering its explanatory power) and therefore makes the distance between matter and soul too great, instead of conceiving of matter as inherently agential. But i still think there is a lot of useful concepts in Leibniz.
Another question: Do you see value in Karen Barad and their concept of agential materialism? I think, they offer some promising ideas which might be usefully applied to concepts like the incarnation that should be fleshed out (Catherine Keller already engaged to some extent with their ideas, but not to a large extent)
thanks for all of theses
This conversation reminded me of a quote from neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield 'Where is the subject, and where is the object, if you are operating on your own brain?' 🧠
These two super brilliant persons are such a gift!
The locus of causation and agency were definite áreas that would be wonderful for these geniuses to explore.
56:20 I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sapolsky in more detail. I read his book, and found it quite unconvincing, but every time I try to explain why to one of his fanboys, they always seem to assume that I disagree because of emotional reasons, when I genuinely think there are some serious intellectual problems with Sapolsky's arguments.
After watching this I grabbed a copy of Beyond Weird. Dr. Hart is correct that Dr. Ball is an excellent communicator of these concepts (not that that was ever in doubt). First time I’ve read someone who doesn’t continue to impose classical or intuitive images onto my mind as a way to “get” quantum mechanics, but instead is creating space between and clear distinctions around what it means to say that measurements can not tell us about the states of quantum objects. Even still, it’s interesting how I can’t help but continue trying to come up with images that make sense of it - fascinating and at the same time frustrating (but perhaps in a necessary way).
Insightful talk. Have you written about Sapolsky? Of late, he’s been paraded around popular magazines and podcasts as presenting “science’s” answer to the question of free will (that we unquestionably don’t have it). I’d love to see someone push back on the specific claims he is making.
When I have a chance, I may. But a list of his basic logical errors would probably be longer than the book itself. It's an absolute disaster. And, as Philip says, even the science is very shady in many places.
@@leavesinthewind7441While I'd love to see you tear into his pop scientific claims, I can save you the time--from what I've seen, his case against free will is analogous to analyzing a game of billiards by examining the material constituents of the balls and mapping the physics behind the motion of each one, while fully ignoring that there are thinking agents determining their motion.
That is, he arrives at the conclusion that there is no free will, by deliberately ignoring voliontal agency from the outset insofar as it does not neatly feet into bare material structures which, to him, are the pure fundament of reality.
@@leavesinthewind7441he essentially analyzes a game of billiards via its atomic structure and the physics behind the ball movement, while completely disregarding the fact that volitional agents are the ones determining the motion. This is what every materialist determinist does but on a cosmic level.
@@gor764great image describing the crux of the problem for materialist determinists.
I'm more convinced every day that curriculum centering the history of ideas and the detailing of paradigm shifts should be the primary way of doing public education. His books would have been infinitely better than the shitty textbooks i learned from in school. If I get the opportunity to homeschool my son, I'll be assigning his books.
Just noticed that three of Ball's bookshelves are keyboards :)
I have a couple of Philip's books and they are well written. The problem I have is in biomedicine and other disciplines such as psychiatry the scientific method is not being followed and certain scientists and philosophers have pointed this out.
Hmmm. I question the comprehensive use of the scientific method when dealing with the psyche. Please enlighten me.
@@auggiemarsh8682 Do see if you can find the documentary Run from the Cure it is very enlightening.
Interesting. Do you have any reading recommendations on how one might follow the scientific method in, say, psychiatry?
@@thebasis1704 According to the psychiatrists in the documentary I mentioned earlier, psychiatry is a pseudoscience because there is no test for mental illness. If they have not worked out how to apply the scientific method to psychiatry then I would be unable to do so. My training is in Law.
What scientific method in particular? I think I'm not mistaken in saying that there are multiple different "scientific methods" as different fields require different approaches (even within the hard sciences). Has there ever been one definitive "scientific method"?
Perhaps I misspoke. The agency he proposes transcends nature, but I think it’s argument would apply either way, to something transcendent or something imminent in the natural order.
Again, he imagines that agency as one that explains what looks like mechanical complexity in a material order that he believes is not capable of order in se. He's right about the presence of rational agency, but seeing the question is not the same thing as understanding its logical contents. It still constitutes a dualism, even if that dualism is in some sense "immanent." And a dualism is always a failed solution.
Yes, I would agree with that. I favor a non-.dual Solution myself, having been employed by Indian thought. But I think a solution still awaits us. We have traditional models on the one hand, and we have contemporary scientific models on the other integrating. These may take some time and effort beyond my 78 year old brain.
Hello Mr Bentley-Hart, I was wondering on how existential a threat you think Chat-GPT combined with cooperate capitalism is?
Also similarly what do you think of the tech-bro’s claim to be able to make super human intelligence. Thanks !
In a comment box? I have a book coming out in the fall that you might want to read.
Wish I'd had the ability this whole time to communicate with you in a better fashion than I have previously. I could make the argument that God predestined our conversations, but many would then view me either as a heretic or as someone who wants to rock the authoritarian boat. Hopefully, I'm neither of the two possibilities. I get it, though. I'm not fond of titles, just as many others have told me, but being a fellow Universalist matters to me, in the general idea of Christ saving all, so the end result means the most for myself. I'd like to interview you at some point, even though, I'm fairly overwhelmed by the thought of it. I do hope and believe in a much better world and for us eventually, in that, I think we will ultimately understand one another without all the heartache, confusion, and self deprecating state of our human condition. Perfection will never be a full reality, but I view that as a perk rather than not. If you've gotten this far, then I must be saying something important (dependent upon who you speak to, of course)!
🌞
Promo*SM 🍀
My guess is that you objected to the theology of someone like Stephen Meyer, rather than to his scientific argument, that it requires intelligence to explain evolutionary developments of DNA. I don’t share his religious beliefs myself, but I do think he makes a cogent argument for the presence, in the natural world of some sort of purposeful, intelligent agency.
The basic insight is right, but the arguments as well as their metaphysical premises are all mechanistic, which leaves a vast metaphysical lacuna in the picture.
@@leavesinthewind7441Couldn't agree more. Even Aquinas, the daddy of scholasticism, recognized that the argument from the appearance of natural teleology isn't mechanistic.