John Vervaeke | The Meaning of Meaning | Transcendent Naturalism #7 @johnvervaeke | Uploaded August 2023 | Updated October 2024, 9 hours ago.
In Episode 7 of TN, John and Gregg welcome Brendan Graham Dempsey. Brendan is a writer, theologian, and theorist whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. He is also the host of the Metamodern Spirituality podcast, and he runs the Skymeadow Retreat, which has hosted several metamodern spirituality events. In this episode, Brendan shares about his recent work, which he wrote about in Emergentism, and from his in-progress work on the meaning of meaning. He shows how his work, UTOK, and Bobby Azarian’s unified theory of reality can provide a framework to delineate the history and development of cultural meaning-making systems (i.e., large-scale systems of justification). This episode is full of powerful convergences between Brendan’s vision and the worldview for bridging science and spirituality that is emerging in TN.
Resources
Brendan Graham Dempsey: brendangrahamdempsey.com
Oika: oika.com
Claude E. Shannon: Founder of Information Theory - Graham P. Collins: scientificamerican.com/article/claude-e-shannon-founder
The Levin Lab: drmichaellevin.org
UTOK: unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org
Publications:
A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology - Robert B. Brandom: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/a-spirit-of-trust-a-reading-of-hegels-phenomenology/#:~:text=In%20Brandom's%20view%2C%20this%20is,how%20they%20appear%20to%20us.
The information theory of individuality - David Krakauer: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32212028
Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics - Artemy Kolchinsky and David H. Wolpert: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2018.0041
Videos
The Reality of Meaning: Knowledge, Value, and Complexity | Consilience Conference '23: youtube.com/watch?v=ccNTFeLNkM0
Books
The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity - Bobby Azarian: amazon.com/Romance-Reality-Organizes-Consciousness-Complexity/dp/1637740441
Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence - Alicia Juarrero: amazon.com/Context-Changes-Everything-Constraints-Coherence/dp/0262545667/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature - Eric J. Chaisson: amazon.com/Cosmic-Evolution-Rise-Complexity-Nature/dp/0674009878/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1691937172&sr=1-1
Timecodes
00:00:00 - Introduction and Focus of the Episode
00:02:34 - Introducing Transjective Epistemology and Pragmatism
00:03:13 - Collective Awakening towards Wisdom and Societal Implications
00:07:55 - Naturalistic Universe and Energy-Information Relationship
00:10:40 - Figure-Ground Distinction in Information Theory
00:16:28 - Learning Process in Cosmic Evolution and Complexification
00:20:10 - Symbolic Learning, Spirituality, and the Sacred
00:27:52 - Humans as Symbols and Collective Intelligence
00:30:14 - Symbolic Information in Justification Systems and Enculturation
00:35:00 - Penetrating the Unknown for Higher Complexity
00:39:16 - Justification Systems Theory and Alignment with Habermas
00:45:23 - Progression from Modernity to Post-Modernity and Integrations
00:53:41 - Critique of Postmodernism and Its Impact on Reason
00:56:26 - Faith in Emergence of New Understanding
01:00:39 - Agnostic Stance and Expansion of Knowledge within Ambiguity
01:04:09 - Trust and Cosmic History in Response to Neoplatonic Faith
01:07:12 - Importance of Pattern Recognition in Navigating Chaos
01:07:39 - Carrying the Baton of Energy Information and Being a Good Ancestor
In Episode 7 of TN, John and Gregg welcome Brendan Graham Dempsey. Brendan is a writer, theologian, and theorist whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. He is also the host of the Metamodern Spirituality podcast, and he runs the Skymeadow Retreat, which has hosted several metamodern spirituality events. In this episode, Brendan shares about his recent work, which he wrote about in Emergentism, and from his in-progress work on the meaning of meaning. He shows how his work, UTOK, and Bobby Azarian’s unified theory of reality can provide a framework to delineate the history and development of cultural meaning-making systems (i.e., large-scale systems of justification). This episode is full of powerful convergences between Brendan’s vision and the worldview for bridging science and spirituality that is emerging in TN.
Resources
Brendan Graham Dempsey: brendangrahamdempsey.com
Oika: oika.com
Claude E. Shannon: Founder of Information Theory - Graham P. Collins: scientificamerican.com/article/claude-e-shannon-founder
The Levin Lab: drmichaellevin.org
UTOK: unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org
Publications:
A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology - Robert B. Brandom: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/a-spirit-of-trust-a-reading-of-hegels-phenomenology/#:~:text=In%20Brandom's%20view%2C%20this%20is,how%20they%20appear%20to%20us.
The information theory of individuality - David Krakauer: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32212028
Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics - Artemy Kolchinsky and David H. Wolpert: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2018.0041
Videos
The Reality of Meaning: Knowledge, Value, and Complexity | Consilience Conference '23: youtube.com/watch?v=ccNTFeLNkM0
Books
The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity - Bobby Azarian: amazon.com/Romance-Reality-Organizes-Consciousness-Complexity/dp/1637740441
Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence - Alicia Juarrero: amazon.com/Context-Changes-Everything-Constraints-Coherence/dp/0262545667/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature - Eric J. Chaisson: amazon.com/Cosmic-Evolution-Rise-Complexity-Nature/dp/0674009878/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1691937172&sr=1-1
Timecodes
00:00:00 - Introduction and Focus of the Episode
00:02:34 - Introducing Transjective Epistemology and Pragmatism
00:03:13 - Collective Awakening towards Wisdom and Societal Implications
00:07:55 - Naturalistic Universe and Energy-Information Relationship
00:10:40 - Figure-Ground Distinction in Information Theory
00:16:28 - Learning Process in Cosmic Evolution and Complexification
00:20:10 - Symbolic Learning, Spirituality, and the Sacred
00:27:52 - Humans as Symbols and Collective Intelligence
00:30:14 - Symbolic Information in Justification Systems and Enculturation
00:35:00 - Penetrating the Unknown for Higher Complexity
00:39:16 - Justification Systems Theory and Alignment with Habermas
00:45:23 - Progression from Modernity to Post-Modernity and Integrations
00:53:41 - Critique of Postmodernism and Its Impact on Reason
00:56:26 - Faith in Emergence of New Understanding
01:00:39 - Agnostic Stance and Expansion of Knowledge within Ambiguity
01:04:09 - Trust and Cosmic History in Response to Neoplatonic Faith
01:07:12 - Importance of Pattern Recognition in Navigating Chaos
01:07:39 - Carrying the Baton of Energy Information and Being a Good Ancestor
