How to See the End of the World - with John Vervaeke (Chino conference)

the reason why I think it's important is because I also want to recapture like the little old lady very you know like very simple person who says God will take care of me because that's in that mode it's like I actually don't know what's going to happen right I don't know what's going to happen but I have a an orientation something like I know that God wants the best of me and the thing is that that might mean that you're gonna get dragged in the street and you're gonna get killed and like all these horrible things are going to happen to you but that mode of anticipation is the best mode to stand in in order to face whatever horrible thing The Future Has in front right and it's right and it's not predictive that's right it's not at all predictive it's just a stance which is like all that is given will be taken as the grace of God foreign [Music] this is Jonathan Pedro welcome to the symbolic world [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] how we do this is there a structure probably not usually in the YouTube situation there's one person in charge because it's their Channel yeah so it's like you kind of know who's in charge of what yeah there's always this at least implicit um you see we're from Canada that's right that's right yeah so so um there was a question I mentioned to you and Paul and perhaps we can start there we don't have to stay there we won't stay there yeah um so I picked up on your theme of sacrifice Letting Go a kind of death as being very very Central to coming into right relationship with reality is that a fair thesis at least one part yeah good and then I took it and I I took it into a particular state of orientation because if you maintain the orientation you have towards all the beings or um all the creatures if you want to use more biblical language right that's not the right or that's not the right stance to be in relationship with being or the ground and being Ultimate Reality whatever God if that's fair enough I think it and you can't use a thing to think to come into right relationship with no thickness um and I I thought that thesis was reasonably derivable from your thesis and I think you find I I'm not claiming their equivalence because I don't want to step on doctrinal toes but there's significant uh similarities between theosis and other states like that in other traditions and you've acknowledged that in the past so I don't think that's a point where we get we get stuck or anything but then it came to me that that point is intention and I hope it's tonos and not just tension with something we were also apparently all agreeing on which is the the need for a significant Revival reinventio of uh of ritual and symbol and yet ritual and symbols seem to bind us to creatures to things to particulars and then there seems to be a tremendous tension at least initially is that fair oh no I think I think it's fair um I think that let me toss something in so we can kind of have a few things going one of the things that I was thinking about yesterday when we were thinking about the question of the origin um the the past and the future yeah and the notion of of how we exist between the two yes uh and I I started real because say maximus talks about the logos as both the origin and the Telos right they often the Omega right the beginning and the end and and I I started to realize that let's say If you think about that image you have of the campfire and they go out yeah when they leave the campfire they're they're both remembering the past and the future yes right so the idea that you can remember the future is very it's very important because you do that every time you're doing any task right if you're if you're building something you're remembering the future you're you're always remembering what the the Telos is but that Telos is the reason why you're doing the thing in the first place and so the reason why I bring that up is of course it reflects on the choices that I made in trying to reawaken the kind of let's say a more uh integrated vision of the world is that I don't think we can do it reinvent like I really don't think we can reinvent in some ways our origin is given to us right it's it comes like I mentioned that yes it comes down from heaven that sounds like a weird thing to say but it it had we we're given uh An Origin there are moments that people participate in in origin moments but you can't it's a Kairos right you can't make that up you know you you kind of it just things just happen to be in this right place at the right time with the right people and then it's almost as you're doing it you realize that now is a there's an origin of something happening um yeah and so because of that I tend to go back to this is something that my brother developed by the way if you everybody probably knows knows about him but I want to acknowledge that this idea came from him he uses the the the the Trope of um promised land and Exile as a structure to understand the bigger meaning crisis that there seems to be in the Bible a structure which is the place where you find your home your identity and uh communion and then a place where that breaks and all of a sudden things don't make sense you're in the land of the Foreigner it's foreign Gods you know you can't have cohesion and what he does is he applies that to the whole problem so the scientific development the Scientific Revolution the Enlightenment scientism and that thinking is in some ways a uh it's a moment of Exile but that so so it's part of the bigger patterns like in some ways I don't think it's not something that hasn't happened before Although our version is accelerated but I see in history moments when this breakdown and Exile happens and there it seems like there are certain things that you can do when you're in that moment repent remember um like Jonah right at the bottom of the waters like remember the holy Place turn turn reorient yourself towards that the the origin which also becomes the the Telos uh and so I think that explains a little bit why and when I look at how Christians did it when Christianity when the world changed from the Roman Empire to say to the Christian world it wasn't as much a break as some people want to represent it because in you can see in Dante are the greatest example of that in the way that Dante formulated his Cosmic image he integrated all the Romans myths with the Christian story into a kind of synthesis that was that was good okay so first of all the on the initial point I don't use the word invent or reinvent I use inventio which is a Latin word which means simultaneously to make ended and to discover okay so it's it's a it's a it's a verb of active participation not of making yeah yeah it's it's right and so I re-enter which to turn back to the inventio place uh I and that's what I meant earlier when I was talking about dialectical logos there's practices you can do but you can't make deal logos yeah it's not an artifact right you could do things you can just like a fire you can make all the conditions uh that increase the chances it will catch but it has to catch of its own accord uh so uh I'm I'm in complete agreement I think at the first point um that's why I'm I I'm very careful to use that word rather than the English word invent because invent especially in America yeah that means this wait we have this idea of innovation yes it's a we have it's like our God this idea of innovation no for so for me and that's why I use I use more often the matter the metaphor of befriending you can't make somebody your friend but you it's not like you're passive though like you have to set yourself you have to orient yourself you have to make yourself available and then and then there's a possibility that friendship will will spark so first of all that's that's the kind of thing I'm talking about there second um I think very much to understanding this as a Kairos is right and um and this is the next point is something I I even independently worked on but DC Schindler also talks a lot about in the critique of pure reason is the idea of synoptic integration the idea is uh and and this is also counter current in a big way believe me I know this because we have we have we've had we've had these two channels in the west and they they they're superimposed on each other which is bureaucratization and specialization um and like I mentioned last time significant problem in Psychology like do you think the people who did work on meaning and life and and belonging we'd talk to each other we'd talk to each other and they don't right and so um I think a way in which we're Gathering the logs so that the fire can spark is and this is what I do in cognitive science and what I'm trying to do even more broadly integrate with trying to integrate with your work and a very respectful in philia right and with David David Schindler's work and Paul and right is to achieve that state of uh the broadest possible synoptic integration that can make available I think what you're talking about so yes the Christians didn't just right and that's what I also try and get with the word steal the culture as opposed to like make a revolution right like what you're doing is you yeah it's you're you're taking the logos ability to gather things together so they belong together so that you can give an account and to which you are accountable all that stuff and I'm trying I see that as a project of like it simultaneously the logos is spinning trying to get it to spin out more and more and also try more and more coalesce together in an integration that that's very much the project so there's a way in which in the moment of Exile the moment of Exile actually has an advantage it's hard to understand it but if you look at the stories in scripture Exile is the place where you get riches Exile is the place where your body grows yeah I thought you said witches no it was weird maybe you can if you gather a few of those too but it's mostly the place where you get you get you get riches and so that's place where you increase your body is the place to think about it and you can think about it very simply right when you're you're very coherent worlds you starts to shatter yeah things start to to grow too much and then they disconnect from the origin but that also adds possibility yes if you're ever capable of reconnecting them then all of a sudden Your Capacity is is so much more because more is now connected to the top yeah I think of Kairos as the remember how at the level of attention and then at the level of the distributed cognition you have the dispersal and variation and then you have the selective return to to the coalescing center yeah your brain is doing that culture is doing that and I think in Kairos what you're just describing is exactly that you go into the Wilderness you break the frame so variation is now possible and then that new variation gets drawn back in to something and it's the TS Eliot poem we return to the center after all of our journeying and we know it again for the first time like there's a sense of Sati you remember it and you refit but you also it's like when when people say it's the animesis when people are in the the when when Dia logos catches and people say I've always been looking for this but I didn't know what I was looking for it's that it's the memory that's also a discovery that's why for me I that's what I'm trying to get with that word inventia it's like oh I was always looking for this but I didn't know kind of thing so so and I think what's what's important at least for me because I always complain about the modern world everybody knows but there is a way there's a way in which uh because one of the problems we have is always that there's a line of thinking there's a line a philosophical line which tends to see you know all manifestation or variation as a kind of decomposition yeah the idea that that it's immediately evil because as soon as it moves into variety that whole kind of Gnostic strain but when if you understand that the moving out into exile actually has a function to then re recapture or re or bring in more into the pattern then all of a sudden the the pattern of Exile and the idea of kind of breaking home right or losing of domicide even can if if reoriented capture more of the of the world yeah that's exactly it right right and so that that that you know this the the sort of maximal possible frame breaking for the Mac maximal frame making like in like like in a systemic Insight you know sometimes you have like you have an insight into like a problem and then you have an insight into a set of problems like like your relationship hasn't been going right and it's not like you know well how do I do the nine dot problem it's like oh wait wait all of these problems have this Nexus and if I address this Nexus they all a systemic Insight you know what I mean yeah and so there's that that breaking and making but my the point I want to get at to bring it back to the original point is what is the most appropriate stance to maximal frame breaking that will allow for the metanoia return to the center and that's what I was proposing this stance of the most original orientation we have which is this stance towards because this is the stance that keeps all the possibilities available but not in a not not in they're not they're not disoriented right and that's what I was trying to get to this place what I was talking about that I see at least shared in theosis and Nirvana and Dao right this place where right you are right you've let go of trying to hold on to like because as long as you're thinking thinking in a thingy fashion you're holding on to the framing that bounds and makes them those kinds of things and if you really are prepared you really want to let go of the framing right you have to let go of that way of thinking you have to get to this original orientation state in order to be at the appropriate place on the horizon right so that you can be open to what you're talking about the the new possibilities without giving up being oriented because if you give up being oriented then you're screwed because then you're just tumbling through the nothingness right does that make no I think that's exactly what I that's exactly what I think the the image that I that I have in Exodus there's a that's exact seems to be what's happening when Israel leaves Egypt right it's breaking everything breaking yeah yeah and they also leave with a bunch of other people like other people think like Israel left Egypt no it says it was a mixed multitude it was just a bunch of people who Israelites all kinds of other people Riff Raff who knows it was like this just this massive in unformed thing that goes out into the desert right that goes through the waters the dyes that loses its previous identity and then there's a process of Covenant and of receiving law from above and a re-establishing of hierarchy which binds everything together some of it has uh some of it has a communion aspect to it some of it has also a kind of cutting off the the dead wood aspect of it which is which is a harsher part but you can kind of understand that I mean the reason why I'm talking about this so much is is that is that I do have hope ultimately because I sometimes Express a lot of hopelessness but I really do have hope that this story of even the meaning crisis and the breakdown and everything is necessarily leading to a higher participation and to a big like a bigger frame it's just that while it's happening things are falling apart and a lot of crazy Idols appear and all these little Gods start to start to poke through and want to get the attention and want to take take it for themselves but it seems like that that that it in some ways like the I even the even Christianity I've said this before that the death of Christianity seems to be part of how it's going to happen I really don't know how it's going back sorry I really admire you saying that because it takes guts to say that especially when I presume there's a lot of Christians here yeah but I don't mean to stop being a Christian I just mean to die and I'm not saying you are I don't like saying that but you know no no but first of all I I'm trying to afford you a possibility uh to to frame that a little bit more complete so people can see um the positive intent behind the statement um and but because there's an analog to what you're saying in the Exodus story an entire generation has to die yeah an entire generation has to die and Moses can't go in to the promised land like the leader and the entire generation when it was just what what Caleb and Joshua they get together yeah the Savior and the dog right because Caleb mean one of the ingredients of Calvin's dog right he's actually not an Israelite he's a he's a canizite so it's like the out inside of the outside like the the inner pillar and the outer pillar are the ones that create the new world it's a it's a beautiful image actually it's kind of painful to think about but but there is and that reminds me um let's make a straight you as an analogy but it reminds me of Thomas Kuhn um in the structure of scientific revolutions and he talks about you know when there's a paradigm shift and and yeah and one of the one of the primary mechanisms of paradigm shift is the leaders of the previous Paradigm die it's human mortality actually is one of the facilitators of a paradigm shift in science uh they have to they have to die because you don't derive the new paradigm it's like you're idea of faith is leaping from one level to another when you shift to Paradigm you can make sense of the previous Paradigm retrospectively but you can't generate it prospectively and so there's a there's a real death um that makes possible a new generation that creates the paradigm shift is does that no I totally agree and I think that that that's the image I think that when we talk about eschatology eschatological imagery it seems to be the way to formulate it it's formulated as a crazy image right yeah of a guy sitting on a throne with a sword coming out of his mouth and he's judging between what is inside and outside and he's re-establishing the law and it appears almost mythologically but we know that it's going to happen because that's how the world works we uh we know because we experience it at little levels where things die and then they they kind of come back up at at higher in higher to higher participations we also notice even not just in time but in in the ontological hierarchy itself how that works how for things to participate in higher beings they have to give up some of their idiosyncrasy right like a like a family meal like you have to give up your idiosyncrasy to be able to commune with everybody else or a sports team or whatever and so the the mythological image in some ways it's like you're formulating the print you're formulating the pattern itself saying this is how the world Works here's a here's a limit version of it right and it has this this imagery to it uh uh I want to make sure I'm getting because I think this is a crucial Point sorry so what I'm hearing you saying is so this imagery is obviously imaginal it's helping you to become aware of things you're not typically every day aware of and and that awareness is sort of like of the fundamental grammar of reality which is what you need to drop back to when you're in this space of the Wilderness because that's that's All That Remains is that sort of fun is that is well no that's exactly exactly right but it gives you a way because this is the problem right it's like how do you how do you live in the future how do you Orient yourself towards the future the future is not there yes just not there yet you don't know what it's going to look like but what you have is this image this eschatological image and the kind of mythological image of what the future is and that makes it possible for you to move towards re-enchantment or a re-appropriation without knowing exactly what that's going to look like in the in the nitty-gritty details right right so so this to me sounds like the way the imaginal is at work in orientation so I I don't know if I've I can't remember where I've given this this so this is based on a lot of work by Hirshfield and others you go into a um a university where at least the people believe that they're the best um in rational thinking and the use of Education um and you present them with absolutely clear argument and evidence that they should start saving for their retirement right now you take all their challenges you respond to it they all agree yes I should start saving you come back in six months and none of them are saving for the retirement none of them and then you do something else you say okay uh what I want you to do is well first of all let me see what the problem is the problem is people don't want to connect to their future self because their future self is I mean I'm facing retirement so this sort of looms your future self is older uglier weaker and unimportant right um and so instead what they did is they said notice the language here I want you to imagine that this isn't imaginable I want you to imagine your future self as a beloved family member that you've always cared for and that you have and you you and you have tremendous compassion and concern for when they come back in six months the people are saving if they did the so the variables are do they do the practice if they do the practice they save and how vividly they do the practice predicts how much they save right this is what I mean about how the imaginal is necessary for the rational where the rational doesn't mean the inferential because all the inferences were there in the first experiment what it means is the ratio the orienting you and proportioning you properly towards the future now that doesn't mean they're getting an accurate the point isn't isn't an accurate prediction of their future self the point is this ratio religio this proper Orient properly proportioned orientation is is that how these this is what I'm hoping and and some people might not understand why I'm harping up on this because I do yeah because I want and I think to me this is crucially important at this moment is to is to be able to formulate a form of eschatology which is not fortune telling yes right which is not like in so many years this this sign is going to happen in and this and that and this and that I'm not saying there aren't signs and there aren't things that happen but I think that that that approaching the eschatology this way is giving it can give us a solution because people hear me and I know I freak people out right I freak people out because I talk about Ai and I compare it to the beast in in Revelation and then people think oh Jonathan is saying it's the end of the world it's like I'm telling you this is the this is the imaginal pattern that was projected into an indefinite future and eschatological future that distills what civilization and technology is and now I can look use that as a model and I can look into the world and I can see instantiations approaching or moving away from that model so isn't it like a lens that allows you to see better to the Horizon rather than a model that you're looking at even no it's like yeah it's a frame of it's like a frame of vision that now permits you then to look at the details of the world and to be able to make sense of what's going on so to me so when I say that I really do believe that let's say AI is moving towards the image of the beast in Revelation uh and I can and it's not just like uh how can I say this it's not just like an arbitrary description of something that I read in the text that I can see oh it's this like oh you put a note right when you were young you probably had this thing like they're going to put a number on your hand and then as soon as someone talks about tattoos they're you're like oh that that's going to be it like they're gonna put a number in the end but it's like it's rather to understand the imagery as something which is manifesting the extreme limit of certain aspects of reality and then they can kind of come back and they can help us understand but and the reason also why I'm talking about this is because that's what we at least in the Orthodox Church that's the way it's set up so when you look at an image of Jesus in an icon you're looking at the eschatological Jesus even an icon a normal icon of Christ when you see him with the book and his hand that's Christ returning that's that's the actual typology that you have so you're looking at the future when you're looking at an icon of the of Christ like you're looking at the future the eschatological future piercing in but not predictively that's no not exactly not predictively it's it's a it's typological it's it's an image it's man it's the it's the Divine man it's all that and in some ways it's that's what that's what's drawing us further like drawing us into itself so the thing about predictive is it gives you cognitive closure that's why we seek it in science and what you're talking about this imaginal orientation this eschatological is It's orienting to you as a future but it's it's leaving space for real emergence for Real uh uncertainty right yeah because uh if no one knows the hour when and yeah yeah right and there's the example is right everybody who's a Christian knows that the person prophecy Elijah will come before the Messiah Ah that's a beautiful typological understanding you understand what Elijah did he kind of you know what his function was how he kind of mocked the the foreign Gods he cleared the the room Jezebel died like that's okay all that's going on and then Christ says Elijah is John the Baptist all right is anybody willing for that kind of interpretation today like is there are a lot of people capable of doing that now where it's saying the same thing now looking at the imagery that is presented for example in Revelation and not and just say oh here's an instantiation of that like this is the this is the Elijah right this is the thing it's not it's not a it's not a like I said it's not a map a map in the the the gross sense it's a map in the sense of uh of a frame of of seeing yes so here I want to do two things I'll try to do both as quickly as possible one is I want to give back to you how what how radical your proposal is uh which I sometimes do with you uh because does it sound radical to you guys uh I'm gonna try and make it more radical I don't think so if you're gonna make it more right no no no no it's it's not radical in speech yeah okay that's not what I that's not what I'm and remember radical also means to return to the origin point radical return to the orange point so you can reorient right that's the that's the original meaning um just published a paper last year integrating relevance realization recursive relevance realization with predictive processing Theory these are two huge Frameworks um there's two meta problems that you have to solve to solve any problem one is the relevance realization problem the other is you want to as as much as possible you want to anticipate rather than react in fact you can sort of measure the intelligence of a being by the scope of its abilities to anticipate and what your brain is it's a it's a massive predicting machine uh uh at many levels of abstraction predicting the next second predict like it's doing all of this in this really complex recursive action I won't get into the uh the and well I like surprises no well you like surprises that are uh momentary failures of prediction that increase your predict your long-term prediction capability you don't like absolutely uh irreversible surprises those are horrible those that's Terror right um yeah you like surprise birthday parties but if after surprise birthday parties they pull out knives then you're like no I didn't want that surprise Okay so I want I want people to really sink into that to savor that I think this is an incredibly plausible um understanding um such that for example and this is this comes into the heart of a lot of therapy even the brain prefers predictable unhappiness over surprising happiness and that's one of the ways in which people get some of your language perhaps I think that's one of the ways in which people can get bound into like sin right that they can get locked in a kind of unhappiness that they can't let go of because of how it plugs into that I'm not saying that's the theological meaning so what I'm trying to get at is to move into a mode in which because I struggle against with this with Scientists to move into a mode of orientation where you are trying to properly Orient to the future but not be in the predictive frame it's radical it goes to the okay fundamental guts of how the brain is working does that yeah but no but I think the it's important is because I also want to recapture like the little old lady very you know like very simple person who says you know uh God God will take care of me right that little statement okay because that's that's in that mode it's like I actually don't know what's going to happen I don't know what's going to happen but I have a I have a an orientation which is to say or something like I know that God wants the best of me and the thing is that that might mean that you're going to get dragged in the street and you're gonna get killed and like all these horrible things are going to happen to you but that mode of of anticipation is the best mode to stand in in order to face whatever horrible thing The Future Has in front of right and it's right and it's not predictive that's right it's not at all predictive it's just a stance which is like all that is given will be taken as the grace of God but do you understand why I mean it's psychologically radical take that stance because like I just said yeah I don't do it I don't know what to tell you I wish I did I wish I did okay I know people that do it more than I do so but so there's there's one thing about the stance from the outward orientation and when about the the taking up of The Stance one is to not confuse uncertainty with risk so one of the things we've we've convinced ourselves is that we can capture all uncertainty risk is calculable unwanted things uncertainty is things that can't be calculated and we have tried since the enlightenment to convince ourselves that we can capture uncertainty with risk calculation and what's coming out what's been coming out in the history of physics and Science and all kinds of things is you can't translate uncertainty you can translate some uncertainty into risk of course you can right but there's a lot of uncertainty if there's if there's real emergence then there's real uncertainty so first of all that because one way we try and seek is we we sort of people are placing their bets yeah right right that's not this you're not before the roulette wheel that's not what's happening what we're talking about here I'm really trying to make this as radical as possible and then on taking it up I heard three things in you I heard these three virtues humility trust and hope I want to start with the one that I have the most difficulty with and I don't just mean philosophically I mean personally which is Hope and first of all because there's two interpretations of Pandora's Box the standard interpretation is you let all the demons out but there's this thing in the bottom hope right and that and that oh yes Hope right that's that's sort of the standard and then there's the heideggerian interpretation is Hope is the heaviest and worst thing in the Box yeah right and when you take up it makes all the others even more painful yes exactly exactly it it it's a burden yeah um and and we all know that there's obviously toxic like the people who stay in abusive relationships too long right the people who misplace their hopes and the fuhrer right all kinds of toxic versions so perhaps we could so I want to talk about all of them hope and humility and trust but what like and I know hope is one of the yeah I would say that again it's the pro it's the idea of the proper stance again that is what do you place your hope in right because if you place your hope in your spouse completely then you're then you're going to lose right if you place your hope in the government in your school and whatever and your friends if you put all of it there then you're going to then it's not going to work and I think that that's why the idea of hoping in God which sounds like a trite statement is actually very profound in the in the proper stance which is that the the my hope is turned towards the towards the infinite let's turn towards that no thing which is beyond the things uh and so but if I put my hope in this or that leader or this or that I'm I'm going to I'm going to ex I'm going it's going to experience a disappointment which is important the disappointment actually it might be what leads you towards hoping putting your hope in the highest but if you look at the in the Christian story you know people I sorry if there are any like Prosperity Gospel people here but it's like in the early Saints they had their hope in Christ and they were expressing their hope in Christ as people were chopping their head off like as people were cutting their limbs off and ripping their skins off their skin off it's like okay that's a little that's crazy but in a sense if you're in that situation that seems to be the best thing it's like a limited version of it right it's like if you were in a situation where someone's ripping your skin off what would be the best stance to have and the Saints represented as this just look as high as possible you know and that that it doesn't make what's happening okay but it's the best stance even in the worst situation this is good I'm gonna present something to you as a foil am I making it as Extreme as possible you should people you should it's getting ripped off you should you could no if we're if we're preparing for an open Horizon making moving to extremity is the proper stance the proper way to comport ourselves to what we're talking about so what do you think that that idea of hope uh solves the problem of Hope in terms of disillusioned hope or or do you think it could at least well what I want to do is I want to I want to try and get a clearer by the contrast of foil uh and and this is appropriate because this actually happened historically um because there's another response to disappointment and of course crooked guard plays these two responses off against each other the night of faith in the night of infinite resignation right so there's the stoic response the stoic response is look I totally get your disappointment thing like 100 percent agree right and so don't place your heart in anything that was ultimately disappointing and then they say well how do we determine like in a rational manner what's disappointing or not because sometimes what you think is disappointing may not but you can be confused if you just go off subjective feeling right so and then they say well what you do is you try and put your heart you try identify uh with what is good because if you are truly in relationship to what is good you you can't ultimately be disappointed and then they say well what is it that's always good friendship no friendship can turn bad and can wealth no I mean you know Fame and they rule and then they say what's the one thing that's always good and their answer is wisdom the cultivation of wisdom is always good there's no situation in which the Endeavor to become wiser can turn like turns bad wisdom is is the good and then that also allows them because they did they also famously faced torture and execution with that now that's a different different now I think one part of your response is that's grounded in the notion that the logos of wisdom is ultimately oriented towards the logos of being which gives them like so Seneca says even when you're painted into a corner you can jump into the sky right that kind of thing so well there's a reason why in at least in the Christian tradition Christ is called the wisdom of God yes the imagery of wisdom in the Old Testament there's a duality to it a little bit but MO most of the church fathers interpreted that as being the logos yes so what's and I'm so the difference I would say between between the stoic and the Christian would be that in the in the stoic it's like it's it's a virtue in the sense that it's a it's a principle maybe yeah whereas in the in Christianity it's uh it's it's a person that you follow it's something it's someone that you follow so so let me see if I can strengthen your argument yeah um and so part of what you're I hear you saying given what we said earlier and I and I'm I'm using you know that I'm using the term in the sense of Icon right um by saying it's personable is that the the that there's there is something that the that can give you afford the imaginal engagement that can reach your grandmother yeah something like that is that is that it's something it's something like that but it's real it's not I don't know and the imaginary the imaginary is not real look if predictive processing is right most of your perception of this floor is imaginal yeah right you're imagining it but it's not illusory because the imaginations are true right because right because like if I want to walk across this floor the sensory motor Loop is too slow so my top-down processing is actually predicting I'm imagining most of the floor that gives me the capacity to walk quickly across so that's when I the imaginal is in the very guts of your contact with reality that's how I'm using the word is that is that okay no I think that's fine I think that's fine so the claim then is that and I'm getting I'm understanding this claim better because I've heard you and Paul make it to me uh several times and each time it goes around and I don't mean I'm just playing with this I hope you don't think that I'm getting clear about what what what what what the claim here is you know Christianity has what stoicism has about the logos to the logos to the logos and that's what's always good and you can you can you can align your logos to the logos maximum yeah so that's that's not not something for it but what you're what you're saying is in the form of a person and not just a person but also hypostasis yes and right um this hypostasis also means substance in principle it's it's we've reduced it to our lock-in notion of what a person is but so it's a person in this fatter sense is that is that fair too okay and then that gives you imaginal access to binding your logos to the logos in an even more profound or even relational in the sense that the way that we experience and this is why in some ways when we talk about principalities or agency or transpersonal agency is that the best way to engage is with as if you're engaging with an agency yeah not as if you are right as much as you're an agency right as much as that that in some ways the mode of human engagement is through agency and through personhood like that's actually how we we we engage uh and so the the claim the claim is important because it's there's a you know the reason why there's been so much uh kind of arrogance about how silly the image of God the personal God is and the kind of how just trite and ridiculous it is but I really I want to propose that when we engage with uh virtues even or with or with if we engage with them as models and if it can even incarnate models to follow that is the that's the realist it's realer than just engaging with it as an abstract principle so it's like if I so that's it's like it's an incarnational way of thinking so I I follow examples of wisdom yes and wisdom itself appears as as a type of of uh of a of a agency that I can submit my will to and so it had it it changes the world back into a world of yeah I mean sorry it tastes the world back into the more like the ancient world where you have these agencies which come down on us from heaven and that we can follow and we we don't we don't see them as abstract principles or as as forms in the way that Plato saw them but more I think at least myself more like the way that the pagans saw the gods rather than the way that Plato saw sees the forms well the neoplating is of those two guests that's right no I totally agree yeah so so first I'm going to get you in trouble again by saying things like that the people that are like Jonathan the superstitious guy trying to get John to believe in demons or whatever I defended you I defended you you did an amazing job you know like someone started attacking me and John was been amazing at defending my position but I know it's a radical thing and it's hard for people to get into that that space because it's a it's a it'll it's unsettling yeah but if they don't leave the Paradigm they're in to get to that space they're screwed that's what's that's part of the AI thing yeah it's part idea I think it is part of the AI I think definitely but I want to stick on this point because there's two things so first of all I'm I think I'm hearing you and there's a way in which I deeply agree that in order to properly Orient logos to logos it can't just be the cognitive grasp of a principle it has to be internalizing the stage because you have to be internalizing perspective taking and identity formation is that is that's exactly that's exactly right and so I think and I I get that uh and and please take this as how I'm understanding it and I'm not drawing equivalencies here but that's what I'm trying to do and after Socrates is I'm trying to give people uh Socrates as a sage that can give them how to internalize perspectives identity formation basically you know embodies and enacts because that's what Plato's that's the point of the dialogue the point of the dialogue is to say look there's no definition of wisdom but here's a person who embodies it and you and what the dialogues do is they try to they break you out of trying to come up with a definition in order to find if if when they work in order to orient towards a weight here's an embodiment and I can do exactly what you're talking about with that now and I'm not I I don't want to I'm not I don't want to do no no no no but so I get I I get that right and I'm not I can make it clear in the series repeatedly I'm not trying to draw equivalencies between Jesus and Socrates although I think like in kirkegaard putting in them into deep dialogue that's I think it's a very valuable thing to do I I think now so big yes to that part and so how can you so this is comes back to what I said yesterday how can you do that in a way that is more than just a mental exercise so the reason why yesterday one of the reasons why I brought up celebration is because that's part of it yes right so worship and celebration in general is a way to part to participate and make these things you know it's like by just attending to them and celebrating them lifting them up yes you know I'm making them models for me to follow and with with with philosophers it seems difficult it's difficult to do like unless you would organize like a cult of Socrates which I don't suggest and that's no no I'm not I'm not suggesting that either well but but it seems like that that that's in some ways that that's the that's the to me the true mode of participation engages that so it's like I you know I I and I celebrate my father right it's like we celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary we're all there together and we're we're there and we're recognizing that as something to put up on the pedestal and therefore to follow and to engage with and it's more it's not the same it's saying this is a good these are the principles of a good marriage you know you should follow them yes the uh the first one is way more real because it it has that you know it has exactly all that it needs it has a kind of uh liturgical aspect to it where I'm lifting it up and I'm putting it up and I'm saying to everybody look at this this is what's valuable everybody looks at my parents said they've been married for 50 years and they're like wow look at how that's crazy that they did that you know maybe I could do that you know I mean if we don't have those mental it's not as explicit but that's how it that's how it works yes yeah okay so there's a there's first of all an answer but before I answer can I put my finger on the problem I wanted to pose because the answer will be engaged with that so the problem you face with everything all the good points you just made this is why I wanted to push on person is our are sort of established sense of person is a creature is a thing and in therefore so I put aside all the silly oh God the sky wizard those people yeah I agree they're they're by and large sort of idiots because they're they're right they're com they're they're comparing the worst form of religion to the best form of science which is like I I can do that with science too like you know here's Edison and he's an example of Science and look at how crazy and stupid his method is and the look at reli and let's look at Aquinas and how systematic he is see religion is so much better than science it's so ridiculous so I agree with putting all of that aside but I do think there is a point and right and I and I think the the you know intellic makes this clear you know the concern with idolatry is ultimately the concern with right not relating to the ground of being as a being right so that's the problem with the imaginal is it focuses you in on a being yeah right and yet and and I and I know Eastern Orthodoxy really wrestled with this the icon versus the idol and John Luke Marion is are like but you see there's a tension there right there's a tension also with focusing on uh do you see that no I I if unless I mean this is now I'm going to be very very explicitly Christian but that if the being if the being appears as someone who dies uh and then that being appears as someone who says something like you know not me but the father right sure yeah and so the the point the because you I don't have a choice right that's that's the problem you do have to see or you do have to imagine you do have to but if you do that and then that's what you have right you have an image of a man on a cross who's dying and he's doing it to fulfill the will of the father and so what he's what he's doing is showing how it is a no thing when it appears as a thing it appears as an emptying and it appears as a kind of emptying of itself into the world uh and so it it helps it gives you that place of focus you've got it but you know that it's not how can I say that it is that emptying and that it only exists in in the in the the vertical relationship okay now I can answer your question to me then right um because for me I'm not proposing a cult of Socrates because Socrates empties himself completely and knowing that he does not know and then what he does is he is a way of imaginingly orienting to the good or the one and that's the neoplatonic interpretation of Socrates and that's how I internalize Socrates as a sage I'm not trying to build a cult around properties and so then let's say the practices around Socrates like the lecture Divina I imagine yeah yeah for very much philosophical contemplation but it's Socrates broadly construed it's Socrates is the Exemplar of philosophy as the cultivation the love the the phylia the shared love of wisdom which is always good yeah well I mean it's that it definitely shows the different like that's the difference I guess like that's the that's the the big divide is that in some ways I think that we do need a cult yes like we actually need it like without it like without the cult we just we we you know it it's not enough to hold all the levels together because what occult does sorry for asking me to be radical like okay so with the what the cult does is that because it frames it in with imaginal language it makes it accessible to everybody right so it's like the most uneducated person can look at a a crucifix yeah and the and the genius in the University can look at the same image and they're both engaging with it at their appropriate level of understanding it of participation but but it it offers that possibility right to all come together you know and so the little lady can have a cross in their house so totally fine and you and Paul make this argument and you know that I take your argument seriously and take them to heart um I guess there's a little bit of pushback yeah you should because I just had a bunch of crazy stuff uh okay just imagine all the comments Jonathan says it has to be a cult so first of all like I said yesterday I think the accusation of a cult um is just empty uh I think if you re-center cult in cultivation and the cultivating of a sense of the Sacred then I agree but I these practices that I'm talking about do that um uh but I want to be I mean the the the accessibility scaling problem is is a real I mean I've I've been responding to this since the very first you made it and and and again I I'm I'm asking for a little bit of Charity to not do the apple and oranges yes Christianity didn't land that scaling no no it took centuries yeah right it took centuries right and and so it's like I'm saying it's a little bit unfair to what I'm talking about in some ways right it's like I don't know and I'm certainly not trying to found a religion and I keep saying that uh but I think we're making progress in scaling this more and more I think there's reason to believe that's the case and it's certainly not centered on me because I have deliberately made that the case because no I don't think I see any of that I I I I think I hope you're not thinking that I suggesting that I don't see any of that I'm it's mostly I'm looking like I'm trying to to I'm trying to let's say I want you to because I feel like I this my this the way that I that I'm presenting it I think that's the way I think and so I want you to there's lots of resonance like I want you to I want you to break what I'm saying sometimes even like if you I'm trying I'm hoping you can even like poke holes in in this idea that in some ways worship is necessary for this yeah so that's the primary proposition and it's so like what I'm trying to get at is uh because I mean um you've got the practices till it you've got ultimate concern for what's ultimate in the and they're they're they're very much about communing not just communicating they're very much about like the the sensing of the leap to the higher level um they're they're they're they're they're they're very much about a a sense of like uh you know of of of radical religio connecting grammar to grammar I've been making that argument and some of the talk so there's definitely awe and sacredness and there's definitely celebration people are sharing about how so there's I feel like and then there's the scalability issue I get that and I've tried to respond to that I feel like there's something else you're trying to put your finger on and worship that I'm I'm not getting and that's where you want that's where you're making your and I mean this as a friend that's where you're making your stand and I want to get clear on that no no that's definitely I think in some ways that's where uh in the sense that I do see like I do see the the worship part as being crucial to how things hold together yeah right and I see that um not just worship like true worship let's say to God but I see celebration I use the word celebration that you know when you do something or you're moving towards a goal you're you're necessarily to some extent celebrating the thing that you're moving towards right you you're elevating it above other possible things you're doing aspirational yeah there you go that's a that's an interesting that's an interesting way of thinking about it and so at a micro scale you you uh you know let's say you're you're just you're just how can I say this you're just walking towards the door well that is a little ritual that is recognizing something as good and is lifting it up above all the other other things you could do and is moving towards it right so it's like it's a little form of Celebration so but this but but then the idea is that in order for that to bind more it has to go higher go higher obviously right but I was trying to so going through the doors relevance realization yeah right right and then I was trying to say but you get to a place where relevance realization realizes that it's irrelevant in order to give you the proper stance towards ultimate and it has to give itself up now that sounds to me like a radical prioritization a radical lifting up of of the no thickness of of what's of Ultimate Reality of the inexhaust like isn't that wouldn't that I no I totally agree but that I think that that that's the stance that is something like that stance to stand in front of the no thickness to stand in front of the infinite and to just that's all you do really there's nothing else you can do except see not see it not or just make a gesture towards it yeah Nicholas sakuza is like as soon as you try and grab it you fall into paradoxes and the paradoxes that just frees your mind kind of thing yeah I I totally get that like we might be just turning around in circles at this point it's possible because I mean I think that definitely like we every time we talk about this we push each other further like and then I think we reach the point where we might have to think about it more on our own and and keep going okay so let me just bring it back to the idea of the of the of the the problem of the meaning crisis and the problem of the home let's say the idea of the spiritual home uh is that okay we come back to this idea of that the thing that we celebrate in some ways has to be our origin and in somehow some ways has to be our Telos and that we don't totally pick that no if we don't get to decide what that is completely it it's revealed to us you know and even for people that have conversion experiences they usually don't it's not like they decided to believe something right it's something that that reveals itself it's the it's this thing that revealed itself to us uh and so and I think that that is again is like that is my worry of any project now that tries to like build something yes right to like to create this new thing uh and that it's fine to do that as long as it's all the intermediary things right so like for example you know I think Estuary is great and I think that's wonderful but if I if I heard Estuary trying to replace let's say the church I don't want to no not you and I don't know what I'm using it then he's I'm looking at you then then I would then I would become I would be like uh I don't think think you have you don't have what it you don't have what it takes to do that uh and so it was funny Applause John Van dong is a party uh and so I'm worried about all of that like we talk about we talked about certain people that because there's a lot of that going on like there is yeah and I'm I'm deeply opposed to that too and I don't want to replace the church I don't want to replace the mosque I don't want to replace the synagogue so there's a couple things here um one is I think you might be right about the death and resurrection of Christianity and uh and and I think I'm still very open to what that might be and I try to keep open that's why I keep in discussion with you so I want to give you that um but a lot of people see the dying and that's all they see in profound ways and then that's mixed up with some very bad history and the Christianity is not available to them for that reason and could we nevertheless help those people and there's two possible responses one is a nasty response is no do damn them to hell or the other is well no they still should be helped and however that turns out well you know hopefully what is true and good and beautiful will be at work in that Saint Paul talks about capturing every good thought yeah right right so the second thing is part of what I think is going on and I hear this more in explicit explicated by Paul is well Christianity has this huge history and that means it's been put through lots of Trials and therefore it's more trustworthy in a lot of ways I think that's a very legitimate argument the problem is that argument would undermine you adopting Christianity at its origin point so there's there's a problem with that argument it gets you very close to performing a contradiction because Christianity was premised on the fact no no we can break from right the tradition and so yeah I don't I really I mean because I'm Orthodox I don't seem to think I don't think that but that's problematic but that that's the other problem for me and you don't have this problem and that's fine but I see the claim that the Christian reads the Jewish scriptures better than the Jewish people yeah very problematic as most Jews do so yeah and as most Christians find the Islamic yes claim yeah yes exactly exactly exactly that's a legitimate concern yes yes so that's that's that's that's how I would respond yeah to that point yeah so I I think we that we've pushed hope very deeply um and I think we've taught touched on trust uh quite well because um trust is an interesting one for me but I think you've given me a lot to think about but I think one thing that was still sort of has been left implicitous like this virtue of humility and so for us I mean the culture humility is very hard to inventio or reinventio because well think about the process humiliation that's not a that's not a positive word yeah that's a that's a word of Devastation and destruction and loss right so what is it we need to do to and habilitate inhabit habit rehabilitate humility well I think I really I think that we have an opportunity it's a little it's annoying because it's a very pressing opportunity is that we have we have a tendency today to self name for people who want to Auto originate yes yes and when we see that we notice what it does it creates a very strange it creates a very strange instability when people try to self name and you could imagine that the image of self naming in in the Bible the idea of taking the Apple for ourselves or especially Babel right the idea where we will build make for ourselves a name we'll reach heaven and make for ourselves a name that doesn't work uh because of that because of just the levels the how the how reality works like you said for you to be able to quantify anything the name already has to be given yes for you to be able to be able to calculate anything the identity has already to be it has to be already there yes right and so and so that's that that's the scale like that this relationship and so if you understand that then humility is just the proper stance in front of before life which is that I cannot re I cannot will myself into existence I have to receive from Heaven I receive from above received from the past receive from tradition received from from that which was that that is not me who I am and without that I I can't you know I'll just I'll just fragment and collapse and then start to break apart that's really good so first of all part of what I'm hearing is uh humility is an approach an appropriately apprehensive appreciation of the vertical yeah right something like that an appropriate apprehension of the vertical so you and like you understand that much is being given and it could also be this way too right what what is like how the Earth gives and and right right yeah well I mean that the idea that body comes from also comes from yeah from from outside so I think that's that's very very powerful two things um humility seems to also be have within it a recognition of one's false failures infinitude um that's the opposite of hubris so how how that gets in and then thirdly how do we not crush the fact that there is an aspect and this is the existentialist made a big deal of this and some of them are Christians right that there's a big aspect of us that is self-defining self-interpreting and part of being you being Jonathan is the way in which you have right defined yourself and like there is that's one of the ways in which we're reliably different from other organisms on the planet right so how do first of all how how does the recognition I'll just use finitude for how does that fit into that and then how how do we not Crush that part of us that is appropriately understood as our capacity for self-definition so I would say the the first one in terms of in terms of of uh of being humble and recognizing your fault and all that one of the problems the reason why that has been so diseased in the past few centuries is I think precisely because we don't think that someone who really thinks they're wretched usually doesn't have a problem the problem is usually people who think they're wretched but really think they're not yeah yeah and so and so they they have this perception of their wretchedness but they think they should be something else so because of that they live they experience it as a kind of Oppression and a kind of of of of bitterness so there's but if you read it if you read the great the great father is like this sense of of being empty you know and of seeing your faults if you don't think you have you have much then then all your faults just become opportunities for you to get better like that's all they are they're just opportunities all your sins become opportunities all your faults become opportunities and again I'm not doing that just so you know sometimes by that most of the time but I can kind of see that and I think that that the the the the even the whole idea of self-esteem that the modern West has developed self-esteem has been a failure yeah I mean no no seriously the empirical data is self-esteem has been a failure okay like if either either we say it's a rational scientific project and we make predictions and we then we get the disconfirming evidence or we're playing some game and of course the culture to a large degree is playing some game right um and I agree put that aside that if you look at the data self-esteem has been a mistake so but then the idea of this of the self-naming or the actualization I think that that can be experienced uh as a self-transcendence yes right but it's it's not self-transcendence in the sense of just picking yourself up by your bootstraps and lifting yourself up it's the it's it's very much like the idea of following a leader right so someone something appears to you as bright and as beautiful and powerful and it pulls you right it kind of kind of gives you that that oomph to move to move into it so you you obviously participate in that but you don't have it in you yeah right yeah right it's like there there are there are things that are that are guiding and pulling you whether it's you know whether it's you're you're playing Sport and there are sports players before you that are superstars and those examples are kind of moving you forward and are aspirational yeah so what I'm hearing is and and I I'm going to bring in uh the platonic thing about you know the aspirational the appropriate aspirational appreciation of the vertical that is properly Binding Together the finitude and the Transcendent how's that for humility yeah do you like that I think that's fine yeah that's good yeah we can I think humility it's good that you bring up humility because it's true that it's something that most people think is uh horrible we have a sense that that humble people are weak uh but I you know there are interesting stories of humility uh that show the strength of humility and Saint Francis of Assisi is a great example yes there are many examples where he humbles himself in a way that actually example secretly raising himself above everybody else he's not he's not doing it but it's happening yeah you know by the fact that he's lowering himself and he's shaming everyone around around him to a point where everybody recognizes that he's the he's the master so I'm not claiming to do this either but yeah um I do is I mean this is sort of meta I aspire to being more humble because for me I want to more that what we just talk about that that it's not the polls it's the polarity right that that aspiration appropriately aspirational appreciation and appreciation means understanding as well as valuing right of the The Binding of the finite and the Transcendent together I want to I Aspire not just want who cares about my wants I aspire to be in The Stance the orientation so that the love of what is true and good and beautiful can Row in me and for me that is how I try to practice the aspiration towards humility does that land for you yeah no I think that's great and I think that that's and I I agree I think that you do sometimes appear that's why some people think you're kind of christian-like because you Christianity light you can choose but no but that the fact that you that you seem to have taken up uh humility and agape and the virtues that Christian recognize as being that which leads towards the good and because you often embody them you know people see you and and are so I mean are taken by by your by your stance in life so yeah don't you agree some of you yeah [Applause] [Music] the the Socrates is not my only Sage I have like I said I have a symphony of sages and I given what you just did I hope you'll hear this in the right way Jesus is also one of my sages and he will he will always be that and I've wrestled with that and I've come to but for at least me at least now a place of Peace around that um so if you're seeing that um I hope this isn't disrespectful some of the credit goes to to Jesus for me some of the credit also goes to satarta and to Socrates but yes I want to give I always like to give credit where credit is due and so um yeah uh um I I I value that I mean I've had a tortured relationship at least early on and you did too to some degree with Christianity um and I have criticisms of it and I've voiced some of them but I always you know it at least imaginably For Me Like Jesus is Alive in me in that way I don't consider myself a Christian because I think there's other because I don't want to water down what I have respect for Christianity I don't want to water it down right I don't want to you have specific claims about history and and I I right but I just want to give credit I was brought up and then you know and I've I've returned in some ways to I hope a right relationship Within Myself with Christianity through tillic and who you know interacting with uh with a whole bunch of thinkers David should learn who I've now met and you and Paul um and I hope um I feel that there's been a lot of movement within me so that um I can hopefully I'm invoking hope I can invoke hopefully at times um let that part of Me Shine through in a way that is valuable to other people that's great yeah so how much time do we have we should I think we should end there yeah I think we're done thanks [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you

Channel: Jonathan Pageau

Views: 30,698

Keywords: symbolism, myths, religion

Id: s5Y73Vig_ec

Length: 74min 12sec (4452 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023