Love, Panpsychism and Neoplatonism w/ John Vervaeke

[@johnvervaeke]

Thank you JP!!

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thank you John, thank you

[@TheVeganVicar]

John, you are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology that supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱 I am not really concerned about what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that the Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin, or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence. The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics. Do you consider any form of non-monarchical government (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial? Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses? Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism are moral? Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous? If so, then you are objectively immoral, and your so-called "enlightened/awakened" state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.

[@mcnallyaar]

"The Primacy of Beauty, The Centrality of Goodness, and the Ultimateness of Truth"

[@j.p.marceau5146]

That is a very poignant line Thank you for your time and attention Aaron

[@TheVeganVicar]

Good and bad are RELATIVE. 😉 Incidentally, are you VEGAN? 🌱

[@DerekJFiedler]

Oh, and the discussions about the One/many, mother/infant, and co-creation ignited my understanding of the Arrival film. How love moves things, like an infant towards its mother. How love is an existential stance. Gosh, so much there!

[@ourblessedtribe9284]

2 years later, listening again and gathering more than ever. Thank you both again

[@mcnallyaar]

The Transcendentals and the Mapping with the Trinity, I'm with Dr. Vervaeke. BUT I also love it, and I have also tried to map the Three Jewels of Buddhism over top of it as well (the Buddha, The Dharma, and the Sangha).

[@elektrotehnik94]

Interesting…

[@projectmalus]

Valuing Plato: How Phenomenon and the Good harmonize Participation with John Vervaeke and Eric Orwoll on the Meditating Philosopher channel.

[@Rttlwomen]

I bet Eric and J.P. would have a great conversation too

[@projectmalus]

@@Rttlwomen I thought that right away as well :)

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks, will check it out

[@DerekJFiedler]

Your conversation are excellent. This one exceeds them all! It was amazing tracking John's revelation of the "through line" as God as it was unfolding in real time. Dialogos at it's best. In music, it's what is not played that matters, the space between the notes, the gap between the keys. It's the mysterious place where the A key becomes B. Perhaps this is the "no-thing-ness" - the substance between things that make them intelligible that you speak of, the substance deeper than the three L's.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Glad to know you liked it Derek, thanks for letting me know! To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by the positive response this one is getting compared to our previous discussions 😄 It's good to know and ponder!

[@davidMflores]

Wonderful conversation. The image of the mother and child is such a profound one.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks David. I've found myself using that image more and more. It's very accessible and yet one of the most profound.

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

34:00 reminded me of an idea I love-the transpositionality between Mythos and Logos

[@grailcountry]

always a delightful pairing, will be listening at work tomorrow

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks Nate, I hope you enjoy it

[@TheMeaningCode]

11:00 And this is exactly how cells know what shape to make and where to make it when they are building an organism. And they have a pattern that they must re-create. And the beauty of it is that the pattern is not an imposition but a gift.

[@sunshineeddy6849]

This is such a wonderful conversation! I’m going to have to create a new playlist to save it in because I don’t think watching it twice will be enough! It will have only the original argument and this conversation. Thank you so much for such wonderful subjects, arguments, and ideas! And Thank you both for allowing us all to be flies on the wall for your conversations. It is deeply appreciated by me. And, I’m sure, many others.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thank you, that's very kind :)

[@therunawayrascal]

wonderful converzation. i reckon the subject is supremely important, and this discussion both did it justice and guided it forward. thank you, sirs! much love

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thank you for your time and attention

[@simonvv1002]

Fundamental conversation. The trinity is the deep interconnection of reality in Love. By participation, we come to know more of it.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks Simon, glad you found this beneficial

[@simonvv1002]

Very beneficial, my friend. I think I'm at the same point as you are (or at least very close on the journey).

[@simonvv1002]

@@j.p.marceau5146 Maybe something interesting to note. Plotinus in his hierarchy gives a description of the One (which could correspond to the Father), the intellect (Nous - Corresponds to the Son) and the world soul (Holy Spirit). But they emanate and return from each other (the One to the Intellect to the world soul). What Christianity does, is take these emanations and corresponds them to each other in a trinity, a deep connection in Love. What John was trying to hint at with the "no thing"ness, is that there's still the Christian godhead. This is something I'm still working out for myself. The Christian Godhead is the essence of the Christian God. It seems that ultimately, the apophatic move is pointing at this essence (which is ultimately the tension between east and west). I think the "no thingness" might be the essence of the Godhead.

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

1:03:00 love the use of the mother/child bond in infancy through love to explore this space. There's a reason that the origin of psychoanalysis is rooted in childhood development, specifically the dynamics mommy-daddy-me as Deleuze and Guatarri put it critiquing Freud and Lacan. The sexual mythos- Libido, the Oedipus Complex and the Taboos put forth by Freud- are fallen interpretations of a real, spiritual phenomenon as the child comes into the world through the love of its caregivers. Much to chew on here.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Interesting observation

[@CrystallineWyvern]

Great discussion as always; thanks john and JP for doing this and sharing and for all your work! Some highlights: Descartes says we begin in Self-consciousness then move out to the other but this is precisely the reverse of what development teaches us starting from infancy. That self consciousness and even consciousness arise from the other in a dynamic feedback loop as pwr Learman. Human lovebis an instance of a broader ontological relationship Fichte starts the trend of ontologizing psychological language (see Nietzsche will to power) ●● Form (and person?) as the throughline of something. Rather than any aspect, as aspectuality always reveals and conceals, always a moreness. The throughline / form is like melody, of which the particular notes are the aspects. In love we have bound ourselves to the throughline a person. Taking all of their aspects and appearances and comporting ourselves so we can see through, by means of and beyond and are realizing the beauty of the person because we have found ourselves adduced, drawn into the throughline. Our experience of logos and of love both different ways of talking about this. And there's not only a throughline for each thing but between levels of being. In love and in dialogos you find yourself caught up in love and following the throughline. • You can love even an object in the artistic and being mode sense of appreciating it not as a fully graspable tool but also as having a moreness in its throughline. "My love actually conforms me to something in it that is only disclosed if I take the orientation of love." ^sacramental mentality of Milbank, David L Schindler, Schillder, ect. Metaphysics of ritual as a metaphysics of orientation rather than measurement (or method) There's something about this one-ing that makes love possible and love also affords insight into what this one-ing is Love as revealing the interpenetration of emergence and emanation; love as getting into the being mode that discloses that, logos as following our intelligibility that discloses that, light is a symbol of how energy and intelligibility come together, and life is also a primordial bottom up top down thing • Love as the unity of oneness and multiplicity, exemplified on the cross, as Christ's love and beauty draws the potentiality of all matter, all creation to himself and up toward the Father, but something that occurs at all levels, the protons and electrons still existing within the atom, the mother and child individuating while united in love (see DC Schindler on Schiller and McGilchrist on Scheler on polar tension) Logos as language differentiating only to form a greater more rich whole (breaks things up so a deeper depth is disclosed), light is itsepf invisible but it differentiates itself into all the visible things in disclosure (see DC Schindler pn God as Being at end of LatPP), and lige as very much about differentiation and integration - complexification, a zygote's cells doing both at same time • God is described as no-thing-ness by Dionysus, Maximus, Eriugena, and as the ocean and ground of Being in Aquinas • God as the throughline of the transcendentals

[@arifisher1698]

Amazing conversation! I really think both you and John would love The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas. He seems to arrive at many similar insights as Schindler, seemingly without drawing directly from him, as he even puts forth the same notion of starting with Beauty, which in it's ultimate form is Christ crucified (because of the resolution of opposites and the integration of death found in the cross), which ignites Eros and draws us towards the beautiful, which then, if we can embrace the cross in the Beautiful unfolds into Goodness, as our Eros unfolds into Agape, by seeing the necessity to become 'the one man lost' for the life of the world, as Christ did on the cross. Then, finally when this process takes place properly, we 'become True', that is, there is a revelation of deep truth that is shown in our being through this process. Patitsas discusses so many topics around the question of the primacy of Beauty, I think both of you would really like it, and for a while I've thought John would love to read it but haven't thought I could reach him, being some random on the internet. But maybe he'd listen to you JP! One thing that came to mind when you were both discussing how it is that lower, non-conscious realities 'love' higher realities in any real sense was a thought that I can't quite remember where I got from, though I think it was either Patitsas or Schindler. It was the notion that as God lovingly creates the world, it is this kind of movement 'out' of himself, giving his life to the thing which He creates, whilst also giving it it's independent existence. This is the emanation, but the emergent view is that this same movement of God giving out of himself to create this thing, is also the theophany of God's beauty over the face of the deep of non-being, which draws non-being into being. Thus Gods loving kenosis is from the other perspective the emergent movement of non-being toward God, and seeing as it is his love which he gives out of himself and uses to create, the emergence is also filled with this love, and is drawn to return to it's source. Not sure if I explained that super well as it's a very lofty notion, but it was one that really stuck with me.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks Ari! In fact, I've reached out to order the book recently! It does seem very relevant. Do you know if Patitsas mentions Balthasar at all in the book? That could be where Schindler and him got it from. Balthasar wrote about this decades ago. And yes, about your second paragraph, I believe I've seen Schindler talk about this, especially building upon Ferdinand Ulrich. I even quoted passages to that effect in some of my articles. In _The Catholicity of Reason_, Schindler also quotes Dionysius to that effect. Maybe Patitsas talks about it too, I wouldn't be surprised!

[@arifisher1698]

@@j.p.marceau5146 I can't remember if he discusses Balthasar but definitely Maximus

[@anthonyrissi4739]

@@j.p.marceau5146 There is no mention of Balthasar, but it sounds like he goes down a similar route; using Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and some secular contemporary resources to ground a Beauty-first approach to reality. There is also some interesting stuff on the science of complexity that you would surely appreciate, considering the scientific metaphors you use. I'll definitely need to get a copy of the Schindler book after listening to you both talk, some of it sounded directly out of Ethics of Beauty. Does his book on Plato complement the other on love? and would you recommend reading one before the other?

[@j.p.marceau5146]

@@anthonyrissi4739 Thanks I don't see the Plato book as a complement, but rather as a standalone book on the Republic. It's really excellent and is what I would recommend for Plato enthusiasts, but it's not necessary to understand what Schindler has to say about love and beauty.

[@blingboxing]

Fantastic guys 🙏

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thank you

[@szymonmajewski4725]

I was wondering if you have explored the theory of dynamical systems and how it possibly provides a language to talk about things like "a stone moving down the hill is moving towards its good". One could for example say that there are stable attractors of dynamics of the stone that are drawing the stone towards itself. Those stable attractors can often be read from the equations describing the system. Furthermore, there is at times a potential function that has local minima at points that are stable attractors, which provides some quantitative physical notion of goodness (or rather badness, as it is minimized by natural movements). Also one can try to connect variational formulations of dynamics with the notion of moving towards the good. Of course, there are a whole plethora of problems that one encounters when one tries to make this more precise, but I thought this might be an interesting avenue for you given your mathematical background.

[@timothydeneffe249]

Ahhh. Thank you!! Few specific configurations of dialogos make things click so much for me as this one and Paul VDK.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Nice to hear, I hope you find this one valuable Timothy

[@bjeol]

I wonder how the relationship between love and fear might factor into this discussion. Especially if we consider humanity as priests mediating the Divine Nature to the world. When I am in a state of fear, I find that objects around me lose their form through my mistaken perception of them as dead matter. They move toward chaos and meaninglessness in my failure to see them properly. But when I am myself drawn up into the love of God I properly see the objects below and they snap back into order and become intelligible and filled with meaning. They are drawn up into the love of God _through_ me. Love creates and sustains because it is the operating principe behind things becoming beautiful and joyous, which is clearly what it means to be true. Perhaps this is how the wave function collapse operates at a metaphysical level, but all of this is exploratory as John would say :)

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Nice observation Nick, thanks

[@projectmalus]

What if fear and love are the same object without qualia, that is filtered thru an object with qualia like a human to become love or fear? Love as complete in itself and this magnified thru interaction, so the child is regarding a pure love object and as the first years progress, builds up the qualification of love. Perhaps tied to power as enhanced ground effect where two objects move together then impact something, and then separate, one with great velocity. So either love from the parent and love object of baby with the person created, or an object of awareness of love from parent and object of awareness (of love) of baby moving together. The new person as ejecta from this interaction that uses qualia to achieve a balance between too rigid and too open, and so this balance would increase love. Could also see the universe as this ejecta with qualia and balance I guess, but also portrayed in herds, packs or flocks where the "ejecta" is comprised of the physical interactions by sound etc. so it appears to hang in the air as an awareness object apart from the single birds. A bird flock awareness the equivalent of a human personal awareness yet tied to context more as balance. This might put intent in its place as not a will to power but the will to diminish context in order to gain interaction power, for a person already formed and so having all the power needed already, and striving for what a flock has. Love would be able to expand and contract which isn't qualia but magnitude. Perhaps the wave function collapses, and what appears is the diminished part with qualia, as the structure for balance as equal distribution?

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

29:00 only part way through and this is interesting. With regards to mapping/scaling the "love" of the electron to human or divine love, have you considered how atoms become molecules through the give and take inherent in chemical bonding? It would be cool to think through how the differential +- charges interact to form higher order physical phenomena and if/how this scales to something like human bonding and relating. Nice work as always, JP.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Yes I think you can really map it out at all layers! Thanks James, I hope you're having a good summer

[@TheMeaningCode]

Did you catch the “nerdy” vid JBP tweeted of Na and Cl bonding? Marriage is at the bottom of everything:-)

[@verntweld51]

It’s great that John’s path has led him to value wisdom the most. Surely as great as Solomon’s love for it. However I think there may be wisdom missed if mapping is not allowed, since it is really just another way of telling a story that relates to our understanding. Maybe all that is needed is to ask for wisdom like Solomon and put into practice that desire he has for it, and let the particles unite to form the virtues he has been seemingly wanting based on the acknowledgment of regrets from having vices (as everyone does)

[@the300XM8]

JP I think you would love to read the book "Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity" by Mikeal C. Parsons. He does a great job of historical textual analysis on how Luke shows that Jesus miracles, by changing physical structure of the reality, make an ontological claim

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks for the recommendation, sounds interesting

[@the300XM8]

@@j.p.marceau5146 very erudite historical research in that book, you will get many valuable insights even if you don't agree with his thesis

[@projectmalus]

If love is playful (efficient) and happy, and also in the oneness there is less than obvious qualities that manifest as multiplicity, it seems to me that love is this fluid ability to change shape. This is for objects that demonstrate what they say, so they state something and also demonstrate it in their being, a two in one object. Love might be this three in one where stating and demonstrating is joined by a happy cooperative giving of opportunity, continuously dividing and reforming. The mother especially but both parents give this opportunity.

[@DerekJFiedler]

Yes! The saga continues.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Haha thanks for the continued encouragement Derek! I hope you are well.

[@projectmalus]

With a tautochrone curve cycloid, not an expert but my impression was that it could represent two things, the shape of efficiency as beauty when we see it in Nature (as any cycloid does I think) and a human couple that is two objects that move at different speeds from different locations yet arrive at the same time at the "bottom". However, there is a space, a semi-circle described and I wonder where the new awareness object as a baby is created. Before the objects meet at the "bottom" ground state perhaps, in that space without qualia involved (a field with one quality, magnitude) with the coming together at the bottom merely introducing qualia to the already perfect object. The physical body would be the enhanced ground effect from the awareness of love objects coming together in that suggested (?) shape or field same as universe, with its qualia as cycloidal movements which produce the being we perceive with senses.

[@projectmalus]

Have a great day!

[@j.p.marceau5146]

You as well!

[@grailcountry]

So, you really are moving toward the kind of Trinitarian ontology that gets us beyond monism and dualism. The Trinity has always been metaphysically a Christian neo-Platonic resolution of the problem of the one and the many and flows naturally out of Christology. I don't know if either of you have read David Bentley Hart's new book You Are Gods, but I think it would be fruitful for the kinds of things you are discussing now. From my first encounter with John's work I had always suggested that Relation was the missing R because all knowing and being known is manifest in relation. This simply is Love, as you have discussed it today. It is the Ground of Being (as the Epistle of John declares). It is the relation prior to the things related, the unity that contains multiplicity God simply is inescapably a multi-unity, one which we image and participate.

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Hello Nate, I haven't read that book yet, and I wasn't sure I would, so thanks for the recommendation :)

[@mcnallyaar]

At this level of analysis, given my Catholic heritage and Orthodox experience, I feel like a Christian. I am Christian like this when I read my favorite poet Coleridge.

[@timothydeneffe249]

JP, merci beaucoup ! How does this through line influence the trick/reversal point that you and Jonathan speak about in regards to the apple being assimilated into another higher entity as it is consumed, and how would this concept you described so beautifully here find its fullest expression in the cross and Christ's sacrifice to assimilate and transform all of reality, as I've heard you say before? Are you at a point where you could answer this now? Here are some things that i asked myself about as i listened: Is the apple expressing love as it is being consumed, and reconfigured into participation with the higher entity, and is the consumer, so expressing love in the act of self giving and then assimilation? Are you saying that this through line of love is actually in a way providentially directing reality by it's activity in drawing all things together in the way exemplified by the apple/consumer, but also and especially, in the offering of Christ on the cross for the world? You are so helpful to me. I've already asked the apple question before, not sure if you remember. Just wondering if you have made any progress on this. Thank you! Shoot me an email of it would be easier for you, I'm really trying to solve the apple question: [e-mail]

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Hey Timothy, Your intuition seems on point. I do think that the apple giving itself up for something higher is a kind of love. You can also see the beauty of fruits in general as a kind of seduction to that purpose I think. I'm afraid I havent thought much more about the particular problem you brought up back then though. I've been working on other things 🙃 I'll let you know if I think of something. Cheers,

[@willgiorno1740]

Thankyou both! I find it hard to conceive of love as a phenomenon removed from ideas like affection, care, or at least 'warmth', so when u speak of love going down to the level of electrons etc I wonder if love is the right word or if it's something else being spoken of... it seems possible that the activity of electrons may be going on within a larger milieu of love, but for love to be the active principle within their individual interconnections seems hard to imagine...it seems to me it might be a principle with a different name, unless care or warmth can be imagined there...or are u saying that the thru-line is love, and the electrons etc are caught up in that, or entrained within that, not themselves loving, but being moved in and by love? Sometimes when in silent prayer I seem to fill with love, it has no object or objective and is not 'mine',...is this the same love enfolding and entraining electrons... JV asks 'where is God in the mother child relation...I wonder is God the love which flows through, shifting mother from emphasis on self identity to entrainment in loving flow, participating moreso in the 'through line' than in an orientation to 'me'

[@Aquaticphilosophia]

The mental gymnastics John does to not be Christian is extremely impressive

[@b.melakail]

Any thoughts on how the movie Interstellar tackles love?

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Oh, you just reminded me of how they invoke love in that movie. I'll need to rewatch it. I remember it's interesting, but I don't recall the details.

[@b.melakail]

@@j.p.marceau5146 Its ending is heavily criticised (and maybe rightfully so) but I quite enjoyed it

[@kaidoloveboat1591]

If you're into Schindler and Balthasar, you should look into Ferdinand Ulrich

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Yes, good recommendation. I read Schindler's companion to Ulrich's Homo Abyssus and found it quite valuable, though Ulrich himself is so difficult I admit I'm not so eager to jump in 😅

[@kaidoloveboat1591]

@@j.p.marceau5146 Erich Przywara is also very underrated