This was possibly the most enjoyable episode I've listened to! The issues and ideas discussed are not ones I find I can talk with many people about so it was a joy to hear them being aired here. Craig's real world application of them helped enormously to ground them in the everyday.
Not having been aware of Craig previously it was also a revelation on the subject of dealing with your everyday challenges. He has a great skill in perspective-taking and breaking down the barriers we create between people of differing ability and the idea of permeability and fuzzy edges - well, permeates this discussion.
And then you dropped in a reference to quantum field theory (like I know much about it...) and my day was made!
This was a phenomenal interview, Rachel, thank you both.
Some brilliant perspectives and language here, necessary sense-making for our times.
I sensed a new (or at least deepening of existent) approach to your interviewing this time too - listening with your body, allowing images to arise and lead, thinking together... All richly welcome! Yes to more of this, we so need it!
I know I'm repeating myself when I say that when I put on my philosopher hat (or also hippie hat, etc) I enjoy these kinds of conversations, but... They can be valuable all by themselves, and also on the perhaps dreaded "practical" level. Trying to find the practical level here, since I generally can't help that when it comes to any one of our crises, is for me a little difficult. No matter what subject or scenario we care to name, we can probably always begin our viewpoint (arguably we always MUST begin) on some particular level, whether that is the I / me / mine level or the totally rolled back "we" as in the One, not myself as conscious "self" but as a non-self part of the One... But we need to establish or assume a starting point.
When it comes to how this is practical, assuming one cares, of course identifying with others is always valuable, trying to see things from their point of view. This kind of conversation can bring that to us.
As the guest speaker said in one example, he is not in any way suggesting that those suffering from pain should stop taking their meds to experience the pain to its fullest, even though he might do that for himself from time to time. How can that be brought to bear on something like the climate crisis and how we respond or experience it? I might decide to "accept" human extinction and not try to stop it, while not suggesting anyone else need try that, is one possible parallel. But in the end, I can't help being drawn back to something that can be a justification for the legal separation of church and state, which is that your spiritual views are fine to have and to hold for yourself. But when it comes to how society as a whole operates and behaves together, private experiences and convictions cannot be made reasons for others to modify their behavior: we can only base societal rules on shared or "neutral" experiences so that no private view is forced onto others. Whether this misses the point here is certainly a possibility. Sometimes I feel drawn to accept the many crises as beyond my power to change (or help change) and so to do nothing, but I can't justify that with the knowledge that doing so negatively impacts others, whether they are current or future others.
Thank you Rachel. I loved this interview, both for its content, and for the way you really do give the platform to Craig. You have a lot of interesting things to say, but you also know how to listen.
Thank you for this interview! The notion of the smallest parts reminds me of a line from a novella ("A Woman's Liberation") by the great science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin which goes something like this (quoting from memory): "a key is a small thing, next to the door that it opens." And I love the attention to embodiment - our bodies and the Earth as body.
[Interestingly, with regard to the comment on climate models, climate scientists are well aware of uncertainties within them and also the differences between models that may have different assumptions and projections, especially at smaller scales where uncertainties are larger (to the extent that much time is devoted to comparisons between models). Where Craig is on target, however, is that the models span only a certain subset of the space of all physical possibilities. Some climate scientists are arguing that we also need to explore possibilities outside the relatively limited range of climate models.]
This was possibly the most enjoyable episode I've listened to! The issues and ideas discussed are not ones I find I can talk with many people about so it was a joy to hear them being aired here. Craig's real world application of them helped enormously to ground them in the everyday.
Not having been aware of Craig previously it was also a revelation on the subject of dealing with your everyday challenges. He has a great skill in perspective-taking and breaking down the barriers we create between people of differing ability and the idea of permeability and fuzzy edges - well, permeates this discussion.
And then you dropped in a reference to quantum field theory (like I know much about it...) and my day was made!
This was a phenomenal interview, Rachel, thank you both.
Some brilliant perspectives and language here, necessary sense-making for our times.
I sensed a new (or at least deepening of existent) approach to your interviewing this time too - listening with your body, allowing images to arise and lead, thinking together... All richly welcome! Yes to more of this, we so need it!
Thank you for this conversation! It has expanded my sense of perception of the world in unexpected ways!
I know I'm repeating myself when I say that when I put on my philosopher hat (or also hippie hat, etc) I enjoy these kinds of conversations, but... They can be valuable all by themselves, and also on the perhaps dreaded "practical" level. Trying to find the practical level here, since I generally can't help that when it comes to any one of our crises, is for me a little difficult. No matter what subject or scenario we care to name, we can probably always begin our viewpoint (arguably we always MUST begin) on some particular level, whether that is the I / me / mine level or the totally rolled back "we" as in the One, not myself as conscious "self" but as a non-self part of the One... But we need to establish or assume a starting point.
When it comes to how this is practical, assuming one cares, of course identifying with others is always valuable, trying to see things from their point of view. This kind of conversation can bring that to us.
As the guest speaker said in one example, he is not in any way suggesting that those suffering from pain should stop taking their meds to experience the pain to its fullest, even though he might do that for himself from time to time. How can that be brought to bear on something like the climate crisis and how we respond or experience it? I might decide to "accept" human extinction and not try to stop it, while not suggesting anyone else need try that, is one possible parallel. But in the end, I can't help being drawn back to something that can be a justification for the legal separation of church and state, which is that your spiritual views are fine to have and to hold for yourself. But when it comes to how society as a whole operates and behaves together, private experiences and convictions cannot be made reasons for others to modify their behavior: we can only base societal rules on shared or "neutral" experiences so that no private view is forced onto others. Whether this misses the point here is certainly a possibility. Sometimes I feel drawn to accept the many crises as beyond my power to change (or help change) and so to do nothing, but I can't justify that with the knowledge that doing so negatively impacts others, whether they are current or future others.
Thank you Rachel. I loved this interview, both for its content, and for the way you really do give the platform to Craig. You have a lot of interesting things to say, but you also know how to listen.
Thank you for this interview! The notion of the smallest parts reminds me of a line from a novella ("A Woman's Liberation") by the great science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin which goes something like this (quoting from memory): "a key is a small thing, next to the door that it opens." And I love the attention to embodiment - our bodies and the Earth as body.
[Interestingly, with regard to the comment on climate models, climate scientists are well aware of uncertainties within them and also the differences between models that may have different assumptions and projections, especially at smaller scales where uncertainties are larger (to the extent that much time is devoted to comparisons between models). Where Craig is on target, however, is that the models span only a certain subset of the space of all physical possibilities. Some climate scientists are arguing that we also need to explore possibilities outside the relatively limited range of climate models.]