Corey Schink, Harrison Koehli, Elan Martin
Sott.netSat, 29 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
© SOTT
What is the nature of reality, and why does it matter? Whether we know it or not, we all have a worldview - a set of very core beliefs and assumptions about the way the world works and our place within it. Sometimes those assumptions work, sometimes they don't, but as long as they are left unexamined, we can't say we've come any closer to actually understanding who we are and what we're doing. That's the great gift that philosophy can give us: a roadmap for meaning.
That doesn't mean it's easy, of course. The number of options on the table is daunting. Is materialism true? Are we just chunks of meat, devoid of any degree of freedom to choose? Are we disembodied minds dreaming up our own existence? Is consciousness fundamental, or an epiphenomenon of a more fundamental, senseless matter? The fact is, our beliefs will influence how we live our lives, whether we know it or not. So why not take a closer look at those beliefs?
Today on MindMatters, we do just that, taking a look at some of the offerings on the philosophical table - including the idealism presented by Bernardo Kastrup in his book,
The Idea of the World. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. Well, according to the dominant philosophical worldview today - physicalism - the world is
still not worth living. So join us as we try to find an alternative that makes life great again - in which meaning and consciousness have a real role to play, and set the stage for the strange and mysterious adventure we call reality.
Running Time: 01:28:21
Download: MP3 — 80.9 MB
Corey Schink was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where he worked on farms and as a welder, musician, and social worker. His interests in government, philosophy and history led to his writing for SOTT in 2012 and to becoming a SOTT editor and SOTT Radio co-host in 2014. He now resides in North Carolina, where he enjoys the magnificent views of the Appalachian Mountains.
Harrison Koehli co-hosts SOTT Radio Network's
MindMatters, and is an editor for
Red Pill Press. He has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on the study of ponerology, which are available on his
Ponerology Substack.
Born and raised in New York City, Elan has been an editor for SOTT.net since 2014 and is a co-host for
MindMatters. He enjoys seeing and sharing what's true about our profoundly and rapidly changing world.
Reader Comments
One thing I noticed is the tendency to consider ourselves mere observers in the process of reconciling mind and matter. Instead, what if we considered ourselves to be a work in progress, and the mind/matter problem to be a symptom of our limitations? What if the organs of perception that we use to grow our understanding of the universe and our function within the macrocosmic and microcosmic worlds, and that we are an ongoing, and largely unfinished project of intelligent design? What if our efforts toward understanding both require and are the result of this developmental process - and that Harrison described how it works with his top-down, bottom-up description of how we can experience ourselves as being part of a larger consciousness? What if the development of our sensory organization depends on being in the presence of sensory stimulation, which in turn creates the possibility for an intelligent organizing principle to work on our development? What if new organs are right now in development that will enable a growing understanding of who we are and what our role/mission is in the macrocosmic whole? In ancient India and Persia, for example, people experienced the spiritual world intimately, but didn't perceive or interact with the physical world anything like we do today. The physical world was considered a trap, as 'maya', something merely to be endured and eventually transcended. Slowly, that changed, until now the reverse is true. Now, we are looking for a new way and a new reason to relate to the intelligence in the universal mind without loosing our hard-won understanding of, and relationship to, physical manifestation, as Corey articulated so well. Is this process accidental, or does this describe a trajectory of development? Are we, at some point, destined to have organs of perception that we don't currently have? If so, will the 'hard problem' of consciousness, and the seemingly irreconcilable dichotomies of mind/matter, religion/science, feeling/thought then dissolve into the illusions that they really are? I think so!
I'd like to add in that we(some of us)as seasoned cultures of the earth can note: our failures and those boring history examinations that led us to this point- the ones that get easily mistaken and covered by natural process and man-made failure to accept reason - in the end we always should be humbled by each other's ability to bring purpose and future goals to the forefront. Amen Selah
Should have said: What if the organs of perception that we use to grow our understanding of the universe and our function within the macrocosmic and microcosmic worlds are still in development, and that we are an ongoing and largely unfinished project of intelligent design?"