This was a really engaging interview and I liked the flexibility with the timing of the big question. There were several highlights for me. The Venn diagram approach as to how closely someone's ontology maps onto their epistemology is almost a measure of integrity.
The idea of border work was another interesting way of viewing the duality of our separateness and unity. There was, it seemed, an underlying assumption that in sharing different myths about the same thing that there would be a shared understanding about the fundamental meaning behind it. The stories might differ but they would reflect a similar ontology and epistemology.
This in turn assumed a lack of competition between different communities - a reflection of his wonderful description of the way signals travelled through the landscape. It took for granted that the natural order was for communities to provide for each other and provide that basic safety net of food, water and shelter for the body and a sense of connection for the soul. It sounds a bit like UBI but with a more Anarchistic slant that allows for the more personal dimension.
The idea of a shared reality seems quite alien or at least remote in this age of individualism. Neoliberalism seems to have captured that 'market'. It is a hopeful thought, though, that if we all took off our post modern spectacles that only allow us to focus on our own small world we might all see much the same thing and while we might frame it differently we might find much more in common.
I have been reading Tyson’s latest book for a while and I found this conversation even more engaging and inspiring. Thanks for another nourishing experience.
It's always a pleasure to hear Tyson Yunkaporta in conversation. I listened to this back to back with the Joseph Tainter episode and what a stark difference in styles. Tyson casually throws out concepts that challenge the listener and I had to hear this twice for my slow brain to get some of what he was saying. The real high point for me was when he was talking through the cascading ecological relationships from ants, echidnas, lyre birds, wallabies and sharks; trying to communicate the complexity and beauty that even a tiny sliver of earth's living systems create. I think that he was trying to get across the notion that we are also a part of this but our knowledge systems are misaligned. Certainly I think that some appreciation of this deep ecology would help convince more people that it's vital to our future.
I'm looking forward to the future episode with the ants platformed by Tyson:
Rachel: Why is the world in Crisis?
Ants: It's the echidnas. They just eat too many of us.
Rachel: If I may, I'd just like to push back on that...
I’ve been waiting and hoping for you to interview Tyson, one of the most important practitioner-thinker, breaker of settler delusions to bring us into right relationship. Legendary
Tyson’ last reflection on ideas and theories not being useful is both funny as it is contradictory –the funny part is that the podcast is built on the premise of ideas and innovative thinking and the latter may just be the guest speaker’s way of introducing a provocative slant in order to make us all think. Hence, it’s a bit of a shame that the interview ends just after that; it would have been great if Tyson could’ve elaborated on his thinking behind that conjecture. His response, in a way, is a mark of an intelligent answer that holds two opposing views simultaneously..on one hand we need ideas, but in cognition-dominant world we live in, it would serve us well to be particularly selective which of those theories and ideas we should keep and which long spent ones to ditch, especially when the current polycrisis is concerned, resulting from our collective clinging to the outdated modes of thinking and acting.
We can all agree that ideas underpin it all; everything that has ever been innovated or invented started with an idea. However, this fact is not only under-appreciated in the modern societies but often conveniently ignored by those who do not understand and do not value the process of thinking up ideas; what it takes in terms of resources to develop ideas and then introduce them into the open. Drawing upon my own experience and applied psychology research, this is one of the biggest barriers to progress with all our contemporary challenges. Such ignorance in treating innovative ideas, that come from outer groups or individuals that are outside of our strongly speciated groups, tends to lead to incorrect and often misguided group-think and behaviours. As these are being replicated again and again, it can eventually lead to a mental and physical impasse.
An interesting point made also regarding - consensus thinking. This is only good to a point when a degree of independent thinking is exercised among the individuals in any given group. Compounded errors can occur with every bad decision made and we end up with collective logic bubbles that can remove common sense from the group, which is what we’re seeing today with action being replaced by endless production of reports (knowledge) in many cases, as part of habitual thinking patterns. Once a good way forward, either expressed as a formula or strategy for action has been established, there is only one thing to do, i.e. to enact what we know.
Speaking of misalignment, as pointed out by T. Yunkaporta with his own take on it, as in to quote him: ‘a misalignment of signals’ is nothing other than a misalignment of our own needs with those of the planet and her diverse peoples, a reality and growing phenomenon that I explored deeply in my joint Regeneration book over two decades ago. The first book on regeneration released in Europe. Today, this notion is quite topical as the signs of such misalignment are clear to pretty much everyone.
How can we de-code the nature’s distress signals, spelling out today an imminent ecological collapse, when most of us live inside our heads in concrete cities, locked in logic bubbles that sustain those outlived beliefs?! Without the right tools that enable us to actively scan and read our landscapes, to envision actionable solutions to correct this in the way the Aboriginal people have done with their entire beings, using ‘songlines’ and ‘dreamtime’. To get us all back on track towards a more feasible earthcentric future. And whilst we cannot all go back to the indigenous way of living, we can certainly bring this indigenous way of thinking back into our communities..if there is a will. This is not a theory, it is an imperative in order to succeed in our efforts to survive and co-exist by regenerating our ways of being in the world, as this conversation so brilliantly highlights.
More innovative thinking and ideas on how to regain our collective cultural and ecological rhythm… can be found here earthvoice.eu.
Holy heck, that monologue at the end about it's all signals and ants was beautiful.
I think I might have been one that sent you Tyson's contact details a few years ago and after you'd mentioned that an interview hadn't happened I'd been afraid that you two hadn't gotten along, he can tend to talk over the top of everyone and I imagine his medication maybe wasn't helping but my gawd you got a golden talk out of him this time.
Gonna be listening to this again.
We have so many different types of ants here on our land here in the Philippines, but there's one that I find very interesting and it's the weaver ants, big fat red ants that are all over the trees and if you accidentally brush up against them or you pull down a vine covered with them, they get all over you, I had to end up shaving my beard off because they'd get in everywhere. More annoying than painful. You can even boil up their babies and eat them like rice. But the interesting thing, they're only in an area that's adjacent to our main road and this is also where I get most of my tree health and disease problems, my bananas plants always succumb to grubs in this area, I get a lot of strange leaf moulds, all stuff that doesn't happen further into the land and away from the road.
So I think of them as caregivers; they're doing some tending, weaving their magic and trying to sort out whatever strange energy/diseases that the road is bringing. I know to let them be.
Anyway, thank so much for getting Tyson on the show Rachel, it was well worth the wait.
I've been listening to Tyson Yunkaporta for years on his personal and often raw podcast 'the other others'. There is no faulting his sense, as he works in these protocols. I question what is 'knowledge production'? Again, it cannot be divisible from the actions and signalling of the context/place. More simply put, it is the crafts of care - growing, preserving and cooking food, growing, processing and making fibre, textiles and clothes, and finally the making of homes and shelters. An exciting discussion but that finally obfuscated the very simple, knowable and embodied practice that is culture - and that can be acted on presently, without 'everyone ' doing it and gives the very real possibility to live beneath/above/around the capitalist structures. I'm excited to hear what Kara says . Thank you.
I think on the topic of time. The concept of belief structures born from the imagination in the foundation of knowing. Before the library of human understanding. Wisdom tells me that the system of belief helped build a frame work of mental wellbeing in society but entirely out of human motivation in order to grasp the gyroscope of mental awareness. As poet William Blake said - a god not of land or sea but of the human mind.
It is therefore a difficult topic, as the structure of religion is tied into the foundation of civilization, though entirely fictitious. As scientific understanding grows, a wonderful new set of challenges emerges. Can we transition society to separate from legacy frameworks or are we destined to hold onto strictly human misunderstandings?
The next enlightenment is much about social structure, in its relationship to our acquired understanding, thereby developing a modern relationship with Nature itself.
This was a really engaging interview and I liked the flexibility with the timing of the big question. There were several highlights for me. The Venn diagram approach as to how closely someone's ontology maps onto their epistemology is almost a measure of integrity.
The idea of border work was another interesting way of viewing the duality of our separateness and unity. There was, it seemed, an underlying assumption that in sharing different myths about the same thing that there would be a shared understanding about the fundamental meaning behind it. The stories might differ but they would reflect a similar ontology and epistemology.
This in turn assumed a lack of competition between different communities - a reflection of his wonderful description of the way signals travelled through the landscape. It took for granted that the natural order was for communities to provide for each other and provide that basic safety net of food, water and shelter for the body and a sense of connection for the soul. It sounds a bit like UBI but with a more Anarchistic slant that allows for the more personal dimension.
The idea of a shared reality seems quite alien or at least remote in this age of individualism. Neoliberalism seems to have captured that 'market'. It is a hopeful thought, though, that if we all took off our post modern spectacles that only allow us to focus on our own small world we might all see much the same thing and while we might frame it differently we might find much more in common.
I have been reading Tyson’s latest book for a while and I found this conversation even more engaging and inspiring. Thanks for another nourishing experience.
It's always a pleasure to hear Tyson Yunkaporta in conversation. I listened to this back to back with the Joseph Tainter episode and what a stark difference in styles. Tyson casually throws out concepts that challenge the listener and I had to hear this twice for my slow brain to get some of what he was saying. The real high point for me was when he was talking through the cascading ecological relationships from ants, echidnas, lyre birds, wallabies and sharks; trying to communicate the complexity and beauty that even a tiny sliver of earth's living systems create. I think that he was trying to get across the notion that we are also a part of this but our knowledge systems are misaligned. Certainly I think that some appreciation of this deep ecology would help convince more people that it's vital to our future.
I'm looking forward to the future episode with the ants platformed by Tyson:
Rachel: Why is the world in Crisis?
Ants: It's the echidnas. They just eat too many of us.
Rachel: If I may, I'd just like to push back on that...
I’ve been waiting and hoping for you to interview Tyson, one of the most important practitioner-thinker, breaker of settler delusions to bring us into right relationship. Legendary
Tyson’ last reflection on ideas and theories not being useful is both funny as it is contradictory –the funny part is that the podcast is built on the premise of ideas and innovative thinking and the latter may just be the guest speaker’s way of introducing a provocative slant in order to make us all think. Hence, it’s a bit of a shame that the interview ends just after that; it would have been great if Tyson could’ve elaborated on his thinking behind that conjecture. His response, in a way, is a mark of an intelligent answer that holds two opposing views simultaneously..on one hand we need ideas, but in cognition-dominant world we live in, it would serve us well to be particularly selective which of those theories and ideas we should keep and which long spent ones to ditch, especially when the current polycrisis is concerned, resulting from our collective clinging to the outdated modes of thinking and acting.
We can all agree that ideas underpin it all; everything that has ever been innovated or invented started with an idea. However, this fact is not only under-appreciated in the modern societies but often conveniently ignored by those who do not understand and do not value the process of thinking up ideas; what it takes in terms of resources to develop ideas and then introduce them into the open. Drawing upon my own experience and applied psychology research, this is one of the biggest barriers to progress with all our contemporary challenges. Such ignorance in treating innovative ideas, that come from outer groups or individuals that are outside of our strongly speciated groups, tends to lead to incorrect and often misguided group-think and behaviours. As these are being replicated again and again, it can eventually lead to a mental and physical impasse.
An interesting point made also regarding - consensus thinking. This is only good to a point when a degree of independent thinking is exercised among the individuals in any given group. Compounded errors can occur with every bad decision made and we end up with collective logic bubbles that can remove common sense from the group, which is what we’re seeing today with action being replaced by endless production of reports (knowledge) in many cases, as part of habitual thinking patterns. Once a good way forward, either expressed as a formula or strategy for action has been established, there is only one thing to do, i.e. to enact what we know.
Speaking of misalignment, as pointed out by T. Yunkaporta with his own take on it, as in to quote him: ‘a misalignment of signals’ is nothing other than a misalignment of our own needs with those of the planet and her diverse peoples, a reality and growing phenomenon that I explored deeply in my joint Regeneration book over two decades ago. The first book on regeneration released in Europe. Today, this notion is quite topical as the signs of such misalignment are clear to pretty much everyone.
How can we de-code the nature’s distress signals, spelling out today an imminent ecological collapse, when most of us live inside our heads in concrete cities, locked in logic bubbles that sustain those outlived beliefs?! Without the right tools that enable us to actively scan and read our landscapes, to envision actionable solutions to correct this in the way the Aboriginal people have done with their entire beings, using ‘songlines’ and ‘dreamtime’. To get us all back on track towards a more feasible earthcentric future. And whilst we cannot all go back to the indigenous way of living, we can certainly bring this indigenous way of thinking back into our communities..if there is a will. This is not a theory, it is an imperative in order to succeed in our efforts to survive and co-exist by regenerating our ways of being in the world, as this conversation so brilliantly highlights.
More innovative thinking and ideas on how to regain our collective cultural and ecological rhythm… can be found here earthvoice.eu.
Holy heck, that monologue at the end about it's all signals and ants was beautiful.
I think I might have been one that sent you Tyson's contact details a few years ago and after you'd mentioned that an interview hadn't happened I'd been afraid that you two hadn't gotten along, he can tend to talk over the top of everyone and I imagine his medication maybe wasn't helping but my gawd you got a golden talk out of him this time.
Gonna be listening to this again.
We have so many different types of ants here on our land here in the Philippines, but there's one that I find very interesting and it's the weaver ants, big fat red ants that are all over the trees and if you accidentally brush up against them or you pull down a vine covered with them, they get all over you, I had to end up shaving my beard off because they'd get in everywhere. More annoying than painful. You can even boil up their babies and eat them like rice. But the interesting thing, they're only in an area that's adjacent to our main road and this is also where I get most of my tree health and disease problems, my bananas plants always succumb to grubs in this area, I get a lot of strange leaf moulds, all stuff that doesn't happen further into the land and away from the road.
So I think of them as caregivers; they're doing some tending, weaving their magic and trying to sort out whatever strange energy/diseases that the road is bringing. I know to let them be.
Anyway, thank so much for getting Tyson on the show Rachel, it was well worth the wait.
I've been listening to Tyson Yunkaporta for years on his personal and often raw podcast 'the other others'. There is no faulting his sense, as he works in these protocols. I question what is 'knowledge production'? Again, it cannot be divisible from the actions and signalling of the context/place. More simply put, it is the crafts of care - growing, preserving and cooking food, growing, processing and making fibre, textiles and clothes, and finally the making of homes and shelters. An exciting discussion but that finally obfuscated the very simple, knowable and embodied practice that is culture - and that can be acted on presently, without 'everyone ' doing it and gives the very real possibility to live beneath/above/around the capitalist structures. I'm excited to hear what Kara says . Thank you.
I think on the topic of time. The concept of belief structures born from the imagination in the foundation of knowing. Before the library of human understanding. Wisdom tells me that the system of belief helped build a frame work of mental wellbeing in society but entirely out of human motivation in order to grasp the gyroscope of mental awareness. As poet William Blake said - a god not of land or sea but of the human mind.
It is therefore a difficult topic, as the structure of religion is tied into the foundation of civilization, though entirely fictitious. As scientific understanding grows, a wonderful new set of challenges emerges. Can we transition society to separate from legacy frameworks or are we destined to hold onto strictly human misunderstandings?
The next enlightenment is much about social structure, in its relationship to our acquired understanding, thereby developing a modern relationship with Nature itself.
With an updated design of spiritualism.?