Alexander,

  Speaking for myself and what we might consider to be the “American Syntheist” vision I am working on, I agree with Zak that the key is the question of “sapience” (and ecologically and relationally wise living for humans). By that I mean that in 1996-1997, I stumbled across a way to frame the form of the human person via JUST-JH. That led me to scientifically understand the nature of us as “socio-emotional primates” relative to us as “self-conscious, Cultured persons”. Our species awoke via “justification” and rapidly evolved because justification systems rapidly evolved.

  Have you see Peterson’s (Western psychological) analysis of the Garden myth in Genesis? (first three episodes especially<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w>). Through the logos awakening we became self-consciously aware of our lives (and what was “Good”) and our death (and what was “Evil”). To my mind--at least in the context of this Western Judeo-Christian Mythos--wisdom means we need to return to the project of building our Gardens eat off of the mythical Tree, constructing our new ethic for a new age. Thus, we “fell” from Grace and were exiled from the Garden as we self-consciously woke up (4th Joint point JUST-JH)…and now we can rebuild Wise Gardens as we awake again to the “Digital God” made in our image via the 5th Joint Point (ToK/Garden UTUA).

  How does that jive with your Zoroastrian Synthetic view? I see it as a bit more (a) American, (b) Judeo-Christian; (c) Individualistic; (d) Western and (e) Moral versus ethical…but it still seems to line up remarkably well. When I was working on my “crazy Garden project” I had no idea that I was groping for a (metamodern) Hegelian Synthesis of Christian theism and the New Atheists, but now I can see that is a perfectly reasonable way of framing it.

Thoughts?

G



From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexander Bard
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2019 4:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Two Hard Problems

Dear Zak and Gregg

Excuse me if I may sound a bit stupid, but what exactly is it that we all know went wrong with Hegel? Just so that we're really all on the same page.
And what is it about wisdom (sapience) that is not intersubjective understanding that comes with age and experience? If anything?
Kids today seem incredibly and naturally alert about getting "mentors" to guiide them as "mentees" through life. Seems a rather healthy reaction against the digital chaos.
The dfialectical reaction against the locking-in of generations as echo chambers that the Internet provided during its first 30 years is already in full swing.

Best intentions
Alexander Bard

Den lör 19 okt. 2019 kl 00:08 skrev Zachary Stein <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>:
Gregg,

We do see things similarly. Although you don’t mention Piaget or any developmentalists in your wonderful and groundbreaking book  ;-)

Brandom is honing in, as an analytical philosopher, on what you'd call the 4th joint point, or what Brandom’s teacher Sellers called  “the space of reasons.” And he means it, as Hegel means it, that reason (not to be confused with *instrumental rationality*) is the distinguishing feature of the human, by which he means:

the distinctively human social practice of reflectively justifying norms—
of giving and asking for reasons/justifications,
of granting and assuming normative statues/roles.

This is the top of the compound individual’s embodied social-skills stack, which is developmentally unfolded, and it brings us up and out of sentience and into the realms of sapience.

Cue Hegel’s bad infinities and Kant’s radical evil—“we have met the norms and they are ours” as Brandom puts it, to encapsulate the view that with sapience comes *responsibility for/to reality itself.*

That is how bad the meaning crisis possibly is. There is no stopping us from getting quite far away from reality as a result of freely created social agreements, both as to what counts as a reason/justification and *who* is granted (and can grant) which social statues/roles (and their powers).

The trick is to discover what Hegel believed he had discovered (of course, we all know this went wrong). The *key to reason* (philosophers stone) the dialectic, the Logos that is Pathos, which could allow us live well together in the space of reasons, opening out (after history) into the freedom of Spirit.

Or so the story goes.

zak







On Oct 18, 2019, at 4:56 PM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Zak,
  We see this similarly. I think an exchange on the metaphysics of experiential consciousness might be interesting, but more pressing is: What does it mean to be human and how do we educate people accordingly? If only we had more educational philosophers and metapsychologists around! Without addressing this issue, it seems highly plausible that the Digital Identity Problem will spiral out of control.

  One of my former students, Chance, who chimed in earlier, argued that the key was found in the concept ofrelational value. How do we create societies that enable the growth and development of the self in a way that fostered mutual relational value (i.e., from the Matrix, the felt sense of being known and valued by important others)? This was similar to some thinking that Michael Mascolo has done on concern for self and love of other. In its scientific language, the ToK suggests we need to get the “J I I Dynamics” right, that is the justification investment influence dynamics such that folks achieveinner balance/harmony and relational connection.<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201601_happiness-2Dis-2Dinner-2Dharmony-2Dand-2Drelational-2Dconnection&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Fsk73jq5AHMiE-ilPwxaI8CYiJCZstxieqPIFWhShys&s=FyA26IJeKEBj7Gc7pU5iIMQv98nJz-Rl0zmWwSUGj9g&e=>

  I am sure folks on this list would love to hear any reflections on the problem of sapience you would be willing to offer…

Peace,
G



From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Zachary Stein
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2019 4:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Two Hard Problems

Hi Gregg,

You would likely find Robert Brandom’s framing of this issue helpful. It is something like:

The (easy) hard problem is about *sentience.* This is the one most everyone goes on about, having to do with *what it is like to be* e.g., a bat etc. That 1st person qualia “magically” arising out of complex meat. (Of course, it only appears to be magical according to bad metaphysics, but that is another email).

The (hard) hard problem is about *sapience.* This one most nobody is tracking, and has to do with *normativity* or *the intersubjective validity of normative status/claims.* Not what is it like to be something, but what does it mean to be a something who is a claimer of intersubjective statues.

You can see how this framing fits well with the ToK system, and is I think a more general frame than "the problem of other minds.”

If we can get people working on the problem of *sapience* then we will have people doing philosophy and psychology again, for real, which would be nice, cause the world is going crazy ;-)

zak



On Oct 18, 2019, at 10:59 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Here is my blog for the week:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201910/there-are-two-hard-problems-consciousness-not-one<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201910_there-2Dare-2Dtwo-2Dhard-2Dproblems-2Dconsciousness-2Dnot-2Done&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=_GU7pjWFDeKry23auW2dHEQoocwNjqiGl-Yz1UUcyHs&s=nvkLo8qgtw829XHc9RgEaGrxGaJi4q5C0o-HosQfris&e=>
Best,
G
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