God as Emergent Potential

[@theintegralstage8140]

It was nice to listen to this inspired synthesis and almost sermon-like call last night, Brendan. I appreciate how you've digested and creatively drawn together a number of the threads I've seen you working with and interfacing with over the last year or two (and, of course, that have been flowing through some of our overlapping communities). Of course, the dominant note through much of this vision is complexity science / systems thinking. A number of people have looked to a complexity/systems approach for decades as essentially the "new paradigm," in large part because it is a language that can span multiple domains -- explaining psychological and social dynamics as much as material ones. So it is 'integrative' in that sense, and some thinkers have called this paradigm 'integral' (such as Laszlo). As you probably know, however, Wilber has been critical of this approach to the extent that it is subtly reductive -- using its sophisticated 3rd-person language to describe everything, such that that becomes the default mode of discourse. It's a sort of engineering approach to life. As an artist and poet as well as a philosophically inclined theologian, I know you have room in your own life, and your own broader work, for 'voices' and registers other than 3rd-person systems/engineering language. But still, I think it might bear saying out loud here, that when you say things like "this is the sacred," or "if this is the sacred," and refer to thermodynamic processes, etc, that that can appear to miss or subordinate some of these other vital domains (and modes) of our living world, and some of the other important 'registers' of the manifestation of spirit or the sacred in people's lives. So ... is this "a" way to approach and envision the sacred and its operation? Certainly. But let's put some brackets or scare-quotes around the "the." When Layman and I used to talk about generative enclosures and surplus coherence, I mentioned a number of times that while there's a lot in those framings that is postmetaphysically resonant and valuable (and I've done my own work towards really trying to develop and articulate them), they can appear to lean maybe a little inappropriately and excessively in the direction of an "engineering" and "self-power" (jirki) approach to spiritual life and the divine. Of course, ultimately, we can complicate the "difference" between invention and discovery, jiriki and tariki, thermodynamic processes and phenomenological excess, and other such polarities, and savor their nondual co-implication and entanglement. So it's not necessarily "wrong" to lean strongly into one, as the other will often pop out through that. But if you're aiming for a broad, inviting approach, I still think the strong engineering, systems language can stand with a little pushback. So that's what I'm offering here. This is not to devalue the power of this language or way of framing things. I've long been a fan of Herbert Guenther's post-Heideggerian/cogsci/thermodynamic-systems-theory translation and re-framing of core rDzogs-chen texts, for instance. But in his case, he deeply intermixes the thermodynamic and phenomenological language with evocative poetry, art, etc, so that the communication is always multi-modal, non-reductive, participatory, etc. I hope you'll keep such an approach alive in your work, in spite of the understandable excitement around the apparent explanatory power of sophisticated systems language. - Bruce

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Complex phenomena rely upon and emerge from their substrates but are not reducible to them. I see a sublime beauty in the fact that we can relate our sense of God to thermodynamic first principles. That doesn't mean the sacred is "just" thermodynamics. As you note, I'm a poet, artist, musician, and farmer. For typology folks, I'm an enneagram 4 and an INFJ. I feel reality more than I think it. If you're interested, you can read my 500 page poem 'GOD.' Or listen to my piano piece "Rebirth of Spirit" or "Threnody [for a Dead God]." Or see my illuminated manuscript project 'Omega.' Or come participate in the emergent rituals I help craft at Sky Meadow. I've done quite a bit of multi-modal, participatory blendings of ideas and art. In fact, I'd consider that my main genre. But maybe you're not as familiar with those works.

[@theintegralstage8140]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey Yes, definitely, I'm aware of many of those parts of your creative work. I'm emphasizing the value of that beyond the systems-translation-work -- which is also valuable, and has found various expressions over at least the last 50 years. It's "a" language, with its own beauty. But also its own limitations.

[@lukedmoss]

Such a quality comment and exchange. One thread I've noticed in my journey is the appearance of "acting *as if*" and how that/those orientation(s) underpin worldview. Presuppositions inescapable and on some level ineffable. Yet survival demands action, and a doing is done nonetheless. I certainly agree that I feel existence before I think it, but to communicate at such a level with others is to rely on verbal constructions and a cultural binary that isn't necessarily representative of pre-discoursive "reality". I am not sure where my thoughts are directed now, but this is enough I hope to comment and provide feedback.

[@mcnallyaar]

Thank you for posting something that gives us an option other than just retreating backwards to various traditional forms of Christianity.

[@alykathryn]

I would love to hear a discussion about this with Matt Segall, I imagine he would bring a great perspective to this expending on the whiteheadian oganic process theological sort of angle

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Yes, I think there's important ways this idea relates to the Whiteheadian notion of the "consequent God." Would love to chat to Matt about the telos. :)

[@scottjrowan]

This was brilliant. Thank you 🙏

[@ninaallchurch3101]

Awesome flow Brendan - you are one of my favourite front riders into the zone of proximal development! As Layman called Alexander Love "Pastor" at the closing session of UTOK conference on the weekend, you're also beautifully in rhetorical flow here too! Your languid sense of delighted ease and linguistic dexterity with the subject matter evokes a plateau of invitation and integration. Keep on! Love your work!

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Thanks so much. :)

[@josephcamosy1999]

Slavoj Zizek, (using Hegel and Lacan) pretty much says the same thing, except that he comes out and says the obvious. His just released book is: "Christian Atheism: How to be a Real Materialist."

[@FractalFernow]

This is so refreshing to hear after going through a bunch of your conversations about "metamodern Christianity". I still have some catching up to do-I listened to your talk with Jordan Hall through to your "Metamodern Christianity" video-but it's been driving me crazy that people have been working so hard to maintain a pre-modern form through post-post-modernity, as if we could reasonably expect it to do that. I think what you're pointing to here, although still steeped in monotheism and its trappings, is a lot more productive: a more abstract, processual "God". A few years ago I thought up what was, in retrospect, a kind of stage-informed Spinozan pantheism, where I could see that all of the accumulation of complexity up to this point was as worthy of being called "God" as anything, but it could just as easily be called a "way" things can develop. Sri Ramakrishna's indistinction of the "Divine Form" and the "Absolute" comes in handy here: these visions need not be considered mutually exclusive, but could be experienced in an oscillatory fashion, as both are embodied narratives, and post-post-modernists should be able to handle those with a unique dynamism. Pragmatism, even. One other thing: it strikes me that a consistent sticking point I have with metamodernity is its common presumption that its mission is to integrate the pre-modern onwards, where "pre-modern" is usually taken to mean "traditional 'religion'", full-stop. If that's the case, I would ask if we're shooting for a _metamodern_ spirituality or a truly _integrative_ one; eg Hanzi Freinacht's work has touched on integrating the "red", "imperial" "will to power"-which I think everyone had better find a way to do-but the animistic/magical seems to basically have been left in the dust. I think that's a shame, because it looks to me like the way esoteric communities have accommodated postmodernity (and beyond?) via "chaos magic" etc could have a lot to offer a meaningful, lived spirituality, particularly for anyone otherwise inclined to marginalize the wisdom of countless spiritual perspectives in order to definitively "convert" to a single one, which often results in them irrationally defending some of its truth claims ("Jesus Christ probably came back to life and flew into the sky, but I don't think _Abraham_ flew on a _donkey_ - that's weird!") as if they need those to be "really real" for any of it to have meaning, in a way that funnily enough smacks of post-/modernist tendencies from some angles. I guess I lean toward a "pan-narrativistic" (a term I'm throwing out) approach over continually trying to update and maintain the borders of any given classic mythology, particularly when that's just never worked for anyone at scale, ever. I'd like to remind folks that as the modern suppressed the pre-modern, the pre-modern enacts its own suppression on pre-pre-modern views and always has. If we're serious about bringing this all together, those approaches(/that approach?) also warrant their place in the conversation. As for the _pre_-pre-pre-modern, "infrared," we may be able to talk about "etheric"/tantric/somatic/whatever practices alongside basic hydration, exercise, etc, but I'd like to put more consideration into that line of thought before trying to expand on it. Much more to think and say on this, of course, but I wanted to get something down and out there. Interested in your thoughts, if you have any on all this; I've greatly appreciated your work, including this recent series.

[@ClayB05]

Funny you guys in these comments sections laugh away the religious ideas because you’re just so modern. Or meta meta post modernist. Whatever bullshit you would call it. But all this new built language y’all are using sounds seriously culty. Like a really dorky cult. Just go to a Latin Mass and be in that community. It’s everything you’re looking for. Full integration of all the crap vervaeke talks about except you’re doing it in real time and not just talking about it.

[@mp1183]

Thanks for the thought provoking stream-of-conscious. I really respect your commitment to thinking in public. Andrew Huberman has critiqued the idea of associating flow state with learning in a few places, and I think this has relevance to what we imagine relating to sacred should feel like if we are to conceptualize it as a learning and growing process. According to Huberman, flow is about performing well what we *already know*, not acquiring new ability. On his account, learning, or neuroplasticity, only occurs under the conditions of repeatedly recognizing errors in a state of heightened attention and motivation, aspects which all relate to particular neurotransmitters involved in the neuroplasticity process. This process is inherently unpleasant, but its the unpleasantness that plays a functional role in cueing the brain to change. One wonders if this unpleasant process of recognizing errors in a motivated and attentive state isn't at the heart of the Christian emphasis on repentance as a fundamental procedure for relating to the sacred.

[@redtrek2153]

That was a very cool and impressive presentation! But I also have to excoriate 🙂 I suppose it's all highly optimistic as a solution. Flow state, learning, complexification, etc.--these are things that society provides access to more than ever yet they seem to only exacerbate crises of meaning in their abundance. As crude examples, people find drugs to feel most alive or play video games to be most in awe. But even worse, people do the seemingly correct and healthy things in life but still end up being left with deep senses of emptiness. It seems to point to the fact that we can get ourselves wired up in all kinds of ways that seem mathematically, scientifically, sociologically optimized, but for all of that optimal grip there may still be a wealth of ungrippable treasure which is lacking. Love, perhaps. Warmth, hope, comfort, glory, and all their opposites so we know the value. All this to say that it seems people need tremendous guidance and that it's OK to dabble in prescriptions and absolutes. God as an evolutionary unfolding of the limits of cognition and achievement is fine. But so is something more established or more personal or more demanding.

[@chrishoward8473]

Not to mention that the god goal he is talking about is maximal entropy, the definition of Chaos.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

@chrishoward8473 Not true. It's the *opposite* of entropy: negative entropy or "negentropy." That's what complexity is. Order our of chaos. Key point. Happy to elaborate further.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Yes, I hear you. But not all rectangles are squares. Meaning: not all flow states are directed towards our flourishing. We can also hijack and exapt evolutionary states to bullshit ourselves, as Vervaeke talks about. Video game addiction is a good example of this. But just because there are hijacked version of positive states doesn't mean those positive states aren't pointing to something of value, even ultimate value. In many ways, that's precisely what an idol is: misplaced love, as Augustine put it, I believe. We attend to what harms us, not what is ultimate for our flourishing.

[@arktseytlin]

Wow

[@sjihtraahfrohcs1524]

Thanks! It has been a pleasure listening to you 🙏🏻

[@01FNG]

Serious question: How does metamodern Christianity view the conflict in the middle east?

[@metamormonism]

The inevitable and utterly unsurprising conclusion of the last few decades of American/israeli hegemony and foreign policy?

[@Chaimiz]

​@metamormonism As an Israeli, I object. You are blaming the victim, very postmodernistic of you. :)

[@metamormonism]

@@Chaimiz if israelis insist on being victims, who am I to get in their way?

[@arktseytlin]

It's a great question because imho that conflict is between pre-modern and modern point of views against the context of post modern world :) How do you reconcile that.

[@Perry.Okeefe]

God is the transcendental object at the end of time. Once complexity reaches its peak somewhere in the future. The question is, does that object relate to time like we do? Or does it perhaps always exist because it will exist?

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Yes, this is a good question. Perhaps temporal relations continue to evolve. Good reason to think so, actually. J. T. Fraser's work is compelling on that point. If this is true, though, could it mean the end folds back on itself into all moments? Even the beginning? Does the beginning start the end and the end the beginning? Paradox, but intriguing.

[@Perry.Okeefe]

​​@BrendanGrahamDempsey I visualize it like a self creating fractal. God creates and guides reality, but is also created by reality himself. It's definitely a paradox, but one I am surprisingly comfortable with. Thinking about reality this way also imbues even the most mundane elements of existence with immense meaning, since those things are necessary in the creation of god.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Like this? ;) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6vQc3iQetiWn7c

[@Perry.Okeefe]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey yes, exactly like that! 😄

[@aeonian4560]

Somehow sounded like a sermon. I would like to suggest that it might isn't just a surplus cohesion of greater complexity, but also greater intensity, therefore greater consciousness, joy and suffering. Even really existential suffering. - Maybe some of the "higher" ways theologians in established religions talk about god would already cover some of the aspects of this emergent potential.. like seeing god as the ground of being, or something like ultimate reality. I like to think that a newer Godconcept also has something to do with a sense that nature became conscious of itself through human beings.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Word

[@HermitofEnon]

What a beautiful, psychedelic riff. The discussion ABOUT God (God-Concept) is interesting, but the EXPERIENCE...where does that come in for your model? Would love to see your ecology of practices to facilitate these models. Vervaeke has his (from After Socrates), and am curious of others. Thanks for all your work and sharing!

[@clintnorton4322]

I'm inclined to think that the concept of a maximal state is a social construct, limited to the societies conceptual imagination. The omni's (omnipotent, etc.) are our current description of the maximal state, but what if that's a limited concept? What if there is no maximal state, only our perception that there should be?

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Yes, very true, it is. The maximal state in my thinking is an asymptote, an approaching, an infinite unfolding, not a finality.

[@clintnorton4322]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey Perhaps horizontally it looks like recognizing maximal optimization and deciding if that's appropriate or might limit unexpected possibilities?

[@chrishoward8473]

I've never heard a better sermon for idolatry

[@Charles-allenGodwin]

Life, the All in One in All, eternally actualizes infinite potential, because only Eternity can fully embrace Infinity.

[@aeixo2533]

Black then white are all I see in my infancy Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me Lets me see As below so above and beyond, I imagine Drawn beyond the lines of reason Push the envelope, watch it bend

[@jesseg7841]

the negentropy bit needs work. Agents optimize how they deal with entropy, they don’t avoid it. There is not a single piece of scientific literature that proves that agents/organisms try to avoid entropy. They optimize how they handle it via metabolic cost. Additionally I think what is unique about understanding what God is, has more to do with how humans effectively cooperate throughout the ages.

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

Organisms complexify by outsourcing entropy to their environment to maintain their own order. Schrodinger wrote about this in 1944, but it is the heart of all dissipative systems. Whether we call that "avoiding" entropy or "optimizing their encounter" with it isn't all that important. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, there's no "avoiding" entropy, since entropy is the given. It's a matter of how entities stay organized in the face of entropy that I mean. As for God/cooperation, yes, that's one of the sort of thing I'm aiming at. Theological frames provided the justification systems of human societies to grow more negentropic. The way God has factored into those systems has changed as the sorts of justifications have complexified. So the role and nature of God has complexified.

[@jesseg7841]

@@BrendanGrahamDempsey I mean we’ve come a long way since 1944… do you have some sources on outsourcing entropy? I think what is happening is exchange between systems… via open system dynamics that are leveraging how entropy is distributed throughout engaging systems… which includes the organism/agent and it’s environment

[@BrendanGrahamDempsey]

@@jesseg7841 Yes, the field you want to look into is non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Important sources would be those on dissipative structures by Ilya Prigogine, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the topic. See his book 'Order out of Chaos' for an introduction. For more recent overviews/surveys, see Eric Chaisson's 'Cosmic Evolution' and Bobby Azarian's 'The Romance of Reality.' Could also check out work by Harold Morowitz and Jeremy England.

[@williambranch4283]

It is called G-d's "providence". Creation is the breaking out of a Creator into an abyss of non-personhood.

[@lincolngreen1344]

Simultaneously suffering ever more deeply..... sorry