Debate on The Quest for the Absolute

Nexus Conference 2011 ‘The Questor Hero. Gustav Mahler's Ultimate Questions.’
Second debate: ‘Faust or Percival? The Quest for the Absolute.’
With Constantin Floros, Adam Zagajewski, George Klein, Slavoj Zizek, Allan Janik and Lewis Wolpert at the National Opera & Ballet in Amsterdam. nexus-instituut.nl/en/activit...

[@HAL_NlNETH0USAND]

'Let me go on very briefly.. so that I stop' :D

[@jorged06]

Wolpert shows the worst attitude a scientist can have: arrogance

[@simonl.6338]

Yeah and he isn't even right in this whole debate. In the other videos too he say's wildely stupid stuff. Typical stem-arrogance and it is if he purposefully tries to not understand philosophy or the connections that interlink everything in existence. Be it psychology, philosophy or physics. Many great scientists knew and know that if you take science seriously you'll ALWAYS reach the point of metaphysics. Infuriating behaviour.

[@kovvvas]

I wish someone posted the whole debate. One of youtube's pearls right here.

[@dannypang5348]

have you found the whole debate now?

[@dannypang5348]

No...anyone?

[@dannypang5348]

Oh shit...that was me.

[@soroushvelayati]

@@dannypang5348 have you found it?

[@RedAnsyn]

@@soroushvelayati have you found it?

[@lflaviorochan]

I'm watching these videos and my urge to slap this Lewis Welport in the face only increases. This ridiculous rejection of philosophy ultimately makes him a bad scientist. I understand when scientists reject continental thought for how it goes pointlessly obscure sometimes, but to get to this point where you're so stuck inside the scientific experimental method that you can't even understand a spirituous analogy is pitiful. Also, he rejects the very notion of Absolute, yet he thinks science is Absolute and can't even see that for himself.

[@killmrdarcy4367]

Further to the comment that I have just posted now , well said Flavio Nunes!

[@iaf4454]

True...

[@TheRandomBiscuit]

So well put!!

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

Truth.

[@Iponamann]

Pure ideology

[@lupo-femme]

Zizek: Let me propose to you a paradoxical statement. Wolpert: Oh...

[@faitttth]

love the ambient breathing noises

[@SamDeHerd-sp8ct]

Yo yeah who doin that shit

[@NewKwanTung07]

Welport implicitly said that there are no absolutes. Isn't that an absolute statement? If not, it searches for an absolute to support it. It looks for the hand to both save it from its contradictions and to endure its desperate desire for rebellious destruction. If it still appeals to relativism, it goes on into something ludicrous. It becomes similar to saying, "Everything that I say is a lie. Except that. And that. And that. And that." It goes on ad infinitum. It is a relativistic framework seeking to become an absolute. What Welport doesn't realise is that his narrow world view blinds him to his own folly. This is exasperated by his furious rhetoric, which condemns him further into the illogical and amplifies his humiliating ignorance.

[@RasierapparaT]

+NewKwanTung07 Sorry for my english first, I'm not sure if I understand everything you said. Aren't you implying now that an absolute statement is already an absolute in the real world? If there are no absolutes in the real world, you could still be saying "there are no absolutes", without a problem, couldn't you? Even if you consider the lack of absolutes in the real world as an absolute itself (that really exists) it would be the only absolute necessary for such a world. I know it sounds paradoxical. So basicly my question is if you can say that the lack of absolutes is an absolute itself and does it really matter if it is the only absolute existing in the real world. If everything you say is a lie, then you should not be able to say the sentence 'Everything that I say is a lie", but everybody else could say that about you.

[@NewKwanTung07]

+RasierapparaT That is a good question. You also raise some very interesting points. Within your comments, you touch on realism against idealism, almost form a dialectic about the ad infinitum statement, and mention humanity's inclination for the paradoxical. There are, however, two fundamental flaws in your argument. They are: 1) The assumption that the illogical can use the laws of logic, and 2) The assumption that "No Absolute" is already axiomatic. By the very nature of the illogical, it repels all laws of the logic. It can try to reason, cajole and barter for some semblance of completion, but it will prove itself not only as a non-sequitur, but ultimately destroy itself unto nothingness. David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment thinker, made a similar mistake. He said that anything which cannot be empirically proven must be thrown into the flames. The problem is that that statement itself fails its own test and it too must be thrown into the flames, thereby making the statement into nothing and rendering the whole exercise futile. The first point is already quite problematic, but it is the second point which carries more harm. By adopting the stance that "No Absolute" is reality, you remove the need to test its premise because you claim there is no premise to test. You have (perhaps accidentally) made a questionable statement into an a priori understanding, which is calamitous due to the fallibility of the position. If you are wrong, there is no reason to support the idea, causing the whole structure to crash into its weak foundations. Besides, who or what determined "No Absolute" as a truth statement? Finally, I agree and say that you are correct if somebody else said that "Everything that [he] say[s] is a lie". It will no longer serves as a relativistic framework desperately seeking to be an absolute. But to put it into a broader perspective, who or what should say "There are no absolutes" to make the statement valid? Is it not something outside relativism to make this claim? Is it not an absolute which needs to make this claim? In whatever way you reason it, reality is more coherent with an absolute than with a relativistic framework.

[@NoCountryForLarry]

This debate is on the intellectual composer Gustav Mahler, who, as musicologists often say, was "searching for the 'Absolute'". The other parts of this debate are on this channel. This is more of a metaphysical debate, not a linguistic one. Wolpert was saying - at least this is my interpretation of his statements - that searching for an 'Absolute Truth(s)' is more or less equivalent to debating for each religion's idea of an afterlife. An 'Absolute Truth' may either be unknowable to the still primitive human mind, or may be knowable to humans in a far distant future - again, like proving something like the existence of an afterlife. I think it is safe to assume that Wolpert, a biologist, believes that the human race should worry about more urgent problems - like finding the cure to cancer and Alzheimer's, and easing relations with foreign countries (especially nonsecular countries) - rather than asking age-old questions that get us nowhere.

[@NewKwanTung07]

It's hardly surprising that Mahler was searching for an absolute, he being the spiritual successor of Beethoven. If I was recognised as the source for next great work after the 9th symphony, I too will be frantically chasing after those faint wisps of perfection. How should Wolpert's short-sightedness be elucidated? Let us use clear terms: Wolpert said to shun the idea of an absolute truth. Any person who says otherwise is a target for arrogant contempt. Hence this is Wolpert's absolute. It is an absolute seeking to deny absolutes to satisfy its own assumed absolutism. Talk about cutting the branch one sits on. Your argument about the primitiveness of the human mind is startlingly close to Kant's antimonies. Close but incomplete. Kant argued that the understanding of the absoluteness of God is far beyond the mind of mankind (I use this term for its all-inclusive implication, as well as for the alliteration). But since God is absolute, He is able to go beyond this barrier to let all know what and who is He. This is not Kant's critique of God, but of the flimsiness of our reason as outlined by his appropriately named work "Critique of Pure Reason." Research for treatments of cancer and Alzheimer's disease is a noble endeavour. A workable peace treaty between warring nations is also a noble endeavour. Would it be too rude to point out that the search for effective treatments and world peace have been around as long as those age-old questions? Have we cured cancer, engineered physical immortality, and banished war into the annals of history? "Nowhere" is le mot juste. You just need to apply it to the right subject matter. One more thing: the pretext that the search for the absolute leads all nowhere is misguided. Surely, an answer for the absolute will fulfill all aspects of life. It will satisfy the hunger of the intellect, calm the tempests of the heart, and bring unity in diversity. And it will finally shed light to the most elusive and pertinent abstract of all - meaning.

[@l.w.paradis2108]

Universal truths and absolutes are not the same thing.

[@mattgilbert7347]

Did Wolpert basically come out as an old fashioned Essentialist? We need the full debate.

[@VSCassidy]

Yes, he was just too naive to notice.

[@almanacofsleep]

Lewis Wolpert sounds like a right fundamentalist, seems intent on closing down discusion.

[@riccardocuciniello2044]

As usual, Zizek is a genius alien within dumb biologists and a poor bad-english-speaking cute Floros

[@AndreasHLux]

But all he said is'nt anything about the Absolute. They asked their problems about, so many times.

[@romanovrex]

For a Zizek-o-phile like myself this has been very illuminating in that the video allows one to see Zizek as part of a diaspora of points of view, and - more interestingly - how he is related and relates to the polarities around the table. In terms of ( his book ) The Parallax View he is truly taking up the place of ( get ready for Australian colloquialisms ) the ' shit fight' between culture and science.

[@riccardocuciniello2044]

"absolute is the fear of death - and then you create a god" Oh poor biologists, never read Nietzsche, didn't they?

[@fatihoguzhan8466]

Can someone please locate the full version? Thanks

[@lastfirst332]

Where is the full video of the debate

[@ledgermanager]

I do think they have difficulties with the concept. I really would like to get intouch with one of them to explane it.

[@dreamingdreamerdream]

Boys locker room be like:

[@Mauser91]

Where's the rest?

[@riccardocuciniello2044]

"nobody searches for the absolute" OH YOU WOLPERT are you really so dishonest? As Nietzsche says, every science comes along with a bad coscience - an idea of truth stating the impossibility of men of dealing with the absence of the absolute. As usual, good scientists, very bad philosophers.

[@rhizomania7607]

Not even good scientist if they can't grasp simple philosophy.

[@MyDenis0]

you know it's fucked up, when an intervention from žižek makes the whole scene NOT a monty python scene. aka all these grey heads except žižek look like they are running a comedy skit.

[@themichaelmcmahoneffect]

There is only one absolute truth. And that truth is I am that I am. Everything else can change and is subjective. But the simple awareness that is consciousness is universal. Every person on this planet can differ from the next in some way, but what does not differ from person to the next the experience of oneself. We all share that. And I believe all life is conscious meaning that in some way everything that is living is experiencing something on some level. Humans however have the capacity to be aware of this experience and while it is likely that most animals may not be self-conscious, they are experiencing consciousness none the less. We'll never be able to understand another species experience of consciousness but it is evident that there is something there that IS reacting and experiencing the external world. In order for life to exist I believe consciousness, not as we experience it ourselves, but in it's rudimentary form, must be present. This is speculation however and based on my experience the only absolute truth that I know of is that I AM. I know nothing else for certain.

[@CreativveLogic]

allan janik had a wonderful point about the mystery of ourselves. That the world offers no sure, practical answers like it does for time, aids and such. That the mysteries of our selves is a personal relationship with form.

[@danpetru]

Yes. i liked him and the other guy, the poet. Then Zizek, i already knew and liked. The one on the right is a science fetishizing blockhead. But apart from my preferences, i think it was an interesting combination of people with very different points of view, put at the same table. Would have liked to see more.

[@dr.treddell]

@1:01 the moment Allan Janik catches a strong whiff of Žižek!

[@ekinhorzum]

Breaking news guys, they are all high. Only Constantin is sober but he can't put it into words anyway :)

[@aphex303101]

On the question of the absolute, people generally think in absolutes or conceptual thought that looks to the whole (gestalt theory for example). This is evident in our perceptions of other people, countries, nations, celebrities and so on, and to some extent nature and the world (for those people interested enough to think about it). People will continue to do this, but it's an open question if people have or will ever find absolutes. For me the process of change is the only absolute.

[@Norpan506]

In Seden we have Absolute Vodka. No idea what it means.

[@Iilangulife]

the absolute is emotionally, the death or a death physically or objectively, the edge or the end of the space he/she belongs to: the horizontal, the farthest away if I have to choose the better or more righteous one, I would do the latter, the physical. the former certainly occurred after the latter and has been accelerating/strengthening the latter. so that also means, many an animal know the absolute, which is not driven by the death.

[@blueninety]

"The moment you can, which up to a certain extent, they can already do 'I think'" Can someone translate into English Zizek's argument from 3:20?

[@cherubling]

The context is of course that the general way we think about ourselves is being in our bodies, and that the external world is just that: external. He then gives the example of a person being able to manipulate their electronic wheelchair (Stephen Hawking style) but without even the aid of the finger to move it, and his point is that at this point the person has become indistinguishable form the outside world, there is no longer perceptions flow in to the person, the person makes actions that have effect on the external world. They are both one being together and inseparable. That this is "something will emerge which is in conflict with many of our very fundamental representations of what we think it means to be human." Does that help?

[@blueninety]

@@cherubling Yeah that helped a lot, thank you for taking the time to explain

[@alcindospinola]

I have definetely got off track and lost this train of thought.

[@CommandantSchrdinger]

Only a sith deals in absolute

[@RasierapparaT]

What does Zizek mean by "in christianity absolute intervenes in time"?

[@lostcatholic3621]

God called the Hebrews to follow him as his people; and most notably Christ took human form and manifested himself into the physical world.

[@ForMindlessConsumption]

This panel is fucking nuts! That "poet" at the end was literally jibbering nonsense. What a magnificent trainwreck. Zizek does not deserve this.

[@lijoaugustine4670]

Man stayed silent for a min and a few seconds, diagnosed lewis worthless, and put him in his place

[@StephenDeagle]

@Krelianx It's like watching a baffled parent try and explain the world to a bench full of babbling teenagers, but senile teenagers.

[@Krelianx]

Wow. Zizek is so absolutely out of everyone else's league here, it's ridiculous.

[@rronbeqiri]

@Krelianx he's usually out of everyone's league in every debate i've seen

[@romanovrex]

I agree Zizek is briliant in this, but the others - not withstanding a serving of senility ( It will happen to you too, soon enough) still make some wonderful comments...the guy looking in the mirror blah,blah,blah. This is what the inside of my brain feels like.

[@gencshehu]

Science does not claim absolute correct knowledge, and yet it does. The idea that the laws of physics are in some way out there beyond the physical world and at the same time permeating timelessly through it all, this idea would be a version of the absolute. But this absolute is timeless, leaving out only space. Maybe, the very notion of time is space reshaping itself into itself - and that would be another version of the absolute which basically is the idea of evolution.

[@freakalmighty2533]

I know this is a short clip of a longer conversation, but out of context this seems like an exercise in schizophrenia.

[@teriyaki8643]

It's just too many people firing arguments each in a different direction, weird

[@MyDenis0]

questions such as what is the absolute sounds like a paradox ,trick question, like those japanese koans, what is the sound of one hand clapping?? We all probably saw , felt many times in our life the absolute, but can't describe it, since as soon we realize it, it is gone, it belongs to the subconcsious and our subconcious doesn't belong to us.

[@danpetru]

Yes, something like that anyway. Once you think you have something it's already gone. Where are you from, just out of curiosity?

[@b4byf4c3455451n]

I have demonstrated the existence of God with emergent order or understanding. Understanding being the object of his one desire, God himself had to surrender free will to satisfy his one will. Freedom is an instrument of omnipotence, because understanding was instead the object of his only desire. Do you understand me, somebody understand me..?

[@Krelianx]

@BoStevoD Exactly.

[@OPTIMUMELITE]

Honestly. Replacing parts 0f your mind is going down a bad path already. When it interacts with your brain. That's a form of transhumanism. Yes it may help someone who can't really help themselves or don't have an alternative. But as a whole what effect will it have on the society. Good or bad or something in between leaning towards a certain outcome.

[@lauramarx8098]

What was Zizek's challenge to Wolpert's claim that there is no Absolute? I feel like he didn't really get to finish his point about a qualitative change happening with thought-control technology or whatever. I get that he's saing the way we relate to the world may be changing, but how does that demonstrate the existence of the Absolute?

[@mattgilbert7347]

It was a challenge to the seeming Essentialist assumptions in Wolpert's position. Wolpert *seemed* to be saying that there is a durable self or "soul" (biological or not) that does not change and cannot change.

[@IvyTeaRN]

If these are the thinkers of our time(except Zizek) i want the world to end please

[@bevanoneill9448]

5 years

[@derrickmullins348]

Is it me or is Zizek always secretly trying to performatively demonstrate the Absloute (as he understands it) by making himself into a traumatic void so that no one can make sense of him? He's always dancing around dodging people without making definitive statements himself.

[@Joesexy424]

Ive had the same feeling about that as well

[@derrickmullins348]

For a long time I had that feeling too, and then I watched a very recent lecture by him where he basically admits that he has no actual answers to provide people for any sort of problem.

[@davidwright8432]

+Derrick Mullins No surprise. Philosophy has never been about final, ultimate answers, but refining questions to the point of knowing what to ask. Beware the philosopher - or guru, or politician, who claims to have a 'final solution'. None exist.

[@uperdown0]

@@davidwright8432 there is one final solution.

[@nagelsleu3339]

why am i more inclined to believe the words of what looks like a hobo than the men in suits

[@ledgermanager]

Ok..ok... One line would be enough.... One sentence would be crude:)

[@cherrysunburst828]

This video is so fucking funny. Such a random selection of men from totally different fields, nobody but two can properly speak English, the topic is Mahler but they talk about completely different things 90% of the time, and Slavoj is sitting there with a sweat stained t shirt among stuck up professor in suits

[@Lion117]

interesting, very.

[@Krelianx]

@rronbeqiri Not with Badiou! :)

[@stewiegriffin6503]

just for info, Wolpert died in 2021 when he was just 91 years old... this is very young age for a Jew, beacuse they mostly live till 100 or 110... just wanted to clarify that

[@HeheRechot]

I think that Klein's claims were very interesing.

[@farrider3339]

Ha ! "Who am i ?" , is an ridiculous question because there is an assumption built within the question that there is an I of which I do not know. That's the beginning of metaphysics. What for do we want metaphysics ? And this is not a rethorical question. Who am I ? can only be explained in terms of identity. Identity isn't chosen Identity is that which I've been told that I am - nothing else °°°

[@josemarialaguinge]

I don't agree with Zizek view on Mahler, but I do think he was right with the answer to the dull Wolpert.

[@RasierapparaT]

"The fear of death is absolute". This makes no sense to me, because when I die, my fear of death will obviously die with me, no matter if something metaphysical exists or not. To solve the question why people seek absolutes we would have to take another point of view, we would have to get out of being a temporal being, good luck with that ...

[@adrienturbanm8496]

+RasierapparaT One could argue the fear of death persists among a property of the conditions of life.

[@User-xw4dt]

Holy shit, I love him so much haahahaha

[@MikeTooleK9S]

we awaken from a relative to the absolute, thats human conditioning

[@stewiegriffin6503]

it's ironic that Wolpert died of Covid complications, but in interview still denied any future complications in the civilisation..

[@1330m]

Global hero coming Huh kyung young from Korea

[@ledgermanager]

So much talking when one sentence would be enough to address it completely

[@steaua96valentyn]

Try to spot the hobo at that conference.

[@jsuisdetrop]

the smartest of em all yet which makes it very funny

[@jd-jw8hm]

I find Zizek so interesting... Just wish he'd find a bar of soap & some running water every now and then.... To declare...there exists NOTHING or NO BEING that is outside the realm, of being detected by humanity's petty 5 senses... Is to declare one's self, to be the ABSOLUTE... and we would all scorn someone so brazen...

[@johnericsson5286]

Why was Wolpert even invited lol

[@simonl.6338]

His arrogant deliberate misunderstanding and even denying of philosophy is so extremely dumb. Just goes to show that education doesn't equal insight, wisdom or truely knowing

[@johnericsson5286]

@@simonl.6338 Funny thing is he probably did a lot more philosophy than the average scientist. There’s several videos of him discussing philosophy vs science, he had a debate on God’s existence and even wrote a book about the nature of science, discussing the ideas of Popper, Kuhn and other philosophers yet it never occurred to him that he was essentially doing philosophy all along.

[@riccardocuciniello2044]

Zizek has a nice beard

[@donikajorgo5612]

Absolute it's the Nature. Only. I see in moments I opened my eye.

[@icanvendetta]

Zizek Just Destroyed Christian Logic In 3 Seconds 😂

[@killmrdarcy4367]

Wolpert's reductionist absolutism continues to both appall and disturb further to the fact that so called metaphysical contents are as much a part of human beings and an innate ontological reality as what the intellect is! Music (while Mahler's music may well be an even more especial case in point here) is - as with other 'art' mediums - the portal wherein one becomes disposed to this legitimate form of being, while Wolpert - who seems to be well and truly on the obsessive compulsive spectrum - is merely yet another example and representative of the rational and 'hard core science hit back' which seems to be occurring nowadays, while regrettably also being associated with ideology that is more on the right - despite the right's attacks on science re: issues like climate change. Of course science is 'absolutely' valid and correct, while also being necessary, but it is not the 'whole' story.

[@tuckerbugeater]

Sir this is a McDonalds

[@Amazology]

Wolpert

[@muyuan9745]

The discussion is headless. What is absolute is not a very intelligent question, because it leads no answer. Much better way to post the question is: does absolute exist ? and, if it does, how can human approach it? Or can human approach it at all? The guys at the table could not differentiate the difference between the two, so they all chase their own tails, some even with disgusting arrogance. These are very important questions to all of us. Unfortunately. These so-called intellectuals are clueless. It is a series problems in our higher education systems. These clueless are confusing /misleading younger generations.

[@ProxyErgoCogito]

This is perhaps the most extreme non sequitur Zizek has ever committed

[@thrillmoron4946]

End your worthless life

[@theongreyjoy19]

10:08 big cute fluffy bear on cocaine contemplating

[@domenhitrec3288]

He never did cocaine.

[@wongwaras1569]

The absolute is just The creator Earth and Sky, as causa prima. The more we (human) think, the more stupid we are then before.

[@michaelboylan5308]

The unbearable pretentiousness of being a self professed intellectual, Montaigne would NEVER have called himself an intellectual, Pretentiousness know thyself

[@chanafiafif6756]

This group of old men did not even exist 150 years ago. So, what and where were they when they had not yet existed? They would never be able to answer this question because all the shits they are talking about are in the scope of phenomena, they have never been able to reach the noumena ( Kant). unlike phenomena, Noumena is not observable by the five senses. But for those who have reached the noumena, it is something real. The problem is that because it is not observable by five senses, its hard to verify. Unless, you understand and accepts the principles of quantum physics, which is unibservable by five senses but the indicators are there visible. God is something that you can not see, what you can see is just the indicators just like the principles of quantum physics.

[@newyork1401]

The Best Story Wins in the End. Science is as much a story as Christianity. Transhumanism is an interesting story but there is a better story out there and it may be a continuation of a story that has already been started.

[@danpetru]

which is that story?

[@BudaPetermann]

Almost all of them are dead today

[@SergeyMalovatov]

It took them about 11 minutes to answer in broken English the question of the absolute. They also found the process very amusing. The audience was amused and well entertained by the clowns, who tried to make all scientists look stupid. The show was considered a success.

[@turtlep.9782]

Who the hell is Mahler anyway?

[@IvyTeaRN]

Author of the best artwork ever created

[@EmmaYaBasta]

Ugh, a poet who speaks for 1% of poets but talks like he is the Absolute....

[@markmotarker]

Half your panel is not even capable of keeping up with what zizek is saying.... Starting with constantin...

[@alexsmits1960]

mankind is part of the solution also

[@illwill2453]

My take-away was that the poet Maller's (sp?) "thrice-fold" victimhood mentality has only spread across the West and continued to be problematic. It is absolutely useless to think of how you are the victim more often than how you are the agent of positive change in the world. The absolute burden is to work together to define the positive as it would exist in definition as positive for the most people most of the time. Otherwise known as the Good. This insinuates that the victim is at least partially Evil and now it is explicitly stated - was not Lucifer portrayed as the ultimate victim in Paradise Lost?

[@slubbergully9231]

Absolute horseshit lmao

[@m-bronte]

I think what is absolute is, if you look through history, writings and art....you see man has been in search for God all this time , that is absolute.

[@m-bronte]

@Crohn "if there were no God, there would be no atheists." G.K. Chesterton

[@OOCASHFLOW]

I like zizik but he talks over people too much

[@aphex303101]

I like Zizek, but he hides behind his opaque and stuttering language, which if you listen carefully to is regularly stating the obvious. Intelligence is not stuttering along on a stream of consciousness tangent, but presenting your arguments succinctly and clearly. This is not to say that arguments should be simplified, but presented in a way that resonates and connects with the listener.

[@MajesticGovernor]

Meaningless, abstract claptrap. Reality itself was created by a holy, eternal God. Because God is holy, he couldn't just ignore sin hence a sacrefice for sin was necessary. God sacrificed himself in human form. God insisted on free will because he didn't want puppets or robots. And disobeying a holy, eternal God created the sin stain and death was decreed upon mankind. God created our brains tp begin with, he is not impressed by our knowledge, he is only impressed by faith and righteousness.

[@kumarnewport]

Someone Please tell Zizek to read the Bible he does not need to be genius to read and understand Bible

[@snigdhajyotidas3057]

Reddit r/circlejerk meet up in real life

[@livefastdieyoung2470]

Bunch of white guys...