2. Useful Fictions | John Vervaeke's Lectern

Autoplay
Autocomplete

Previous Lesson Complete and Continue

Einstein and Spinoza's God

Overall Argument

1. Einstein's Philosophy of Science (13:27)
2. Anomalies of the Enlightenment (16:14)
3. Einstein's Quest (9:00)
4. The Spiritual Significance of Einstein (13:10)
5. The Birth of the Enlightenment Ontology (21:52)
6. Spinoza's Science (12:39)
7. Spinoza's Religion (16:32)

1. Einstein's Philosophy of Science

Full Lecture 1 (66:40)
1. Introduction (3:38)
2. Non-Duality (6:48)
3. Contradictions in the Enlightenment (4:20)
4. The Quest for a Unified Theory of Reality (7:28)
5. Absurdity and Realness (6:39)
6. Disastrous Dichotomies (2:29)
7. Faith and Rapturous Amazement (5:18)
8. Awestruck Wonderment (5:50)
9. Standard Naturalism (4:45)
10. Extended Naturalism (5:18)
11. Presuppositions of Science (5:51)
12. The Advent of the Sacred (3:51)
13. Closing Questions (4:23)
Critical Essay (McGrath)
Full Seminar 1 (49:21)
Introduction to Seminar (1:48)
1. Lance: Is the Enlightenment misnamed? (3:32)
2. Harry: How do we practice looking through both science and religion? (1:23)
3. Todd: What role does Eros play in the Advent of the Sacred? (3:43)
4. Ram: What is the nature of the Self, given its integral role in self-transcendence, wisdom and meaning-making? (3:22)
5. Kyle: Are performative contradictions inherent to philosophy? (2:38)
6. Krystof: How does the cosmic contradiction affect those who are unaware of it? (6:20)
7. Ben: What are some book recommendations about the desire for intelligibility and realness? (2:01)
8. Gary: How is relative time different from Newtonian time? And To what extent is a world connected through religio a mechanism modelled as a machine as opposed to a living organism?* (6:34)
9. Jake: What is the phenomenology of ekstasis? (7:02)
10. Rens: Is there a version or malformed twin of rapture where one stands outside of oneself, oriented towards reciprocal narrowing rather than reciprocal opening and is there anything in Einstein and/or Spinoza that guards against that? (5:19)
11. Michael: What are your thoughts on pragmatism's approach to breaking dualisms? (3:53)

2. Anomalies of the Enlightenment

Full Lecture 2 (73:07)
1. Introduction and Recap (13:27)
2. What is E=MC2? (12:06)
3. How We Got to Newton (7:02)
4. The View from Nowhere (4:20)
5. The Blind Spot and Breakdown of Physics (6:26)
6. Accommodating Paradigm Shifts (4:20)
7. Anomaly: Absolute Space and Time (6:54)
8. Reality and Relationality (4:15)
9. An Argument Against Positivism (2:37)
10. Anomaly: The Photoelectric Effect and The Non-Duality of Reality (5:55)
11. Closing Thoughts: Einstein's Rejections (5:42)
12. Closing Thoughts and Appreciations (1:47)
Critical Essay (McGrath)
Full Seminar 2 (42:32)
1. Introduction to Seminar (1:42)
2. Ram: Is reality both computational and organic and is that a duality into itself? (8:46)
3. Loren: How do we approach the horizon of horror? (2:34)
4. Gary: Is the Einstein & Spinoza theology a process theology that is a panantheism? Does relativity make the ultimate argument for the reality and inescapability of context-sensitivity? (5:37)
5. Jonathan: How did the Theory of Evolution interact with the Newtonian worldview and how did Einstein impact that? (4:20)
6. Michael: In a relational ontology, is there another property of reality that guarantees epistemic convergence or are we going to be left with just its possibility? (3:45)
7. Mihir: Isn't true innovation the peak of human Relevance Realization and therefore are machines, which are inherently derivative, unable to do so? (9:38)
8. Rens: How do you see your work in relationship to Newton's worldview? Do you see it as a necessary phase in developing collective sense-making that affords an understanding of your work? (5:18)
9. Nathan: What would you propose is the virtue of nothingness? (6:08)

3. Einstein's Quest

Full Lecture 3 (80:49)
1. Introduction and Recap (16:14)
2. Useful Fictions (7:50)
3. Inference to the Best Explanation (7:31)
4. The Demarcation Problem (5:45)
5. Sympathetic Understanding (6:50)
6. Contact with Reality (5:09)
7. What is Truth? (10:27)
8. Vervaeke's Critique of Perfect Sacredness (6:16)
9. The Theory of General Relativity (5:59)
10. The Eternity of The One (3:45)
11. Closing Thoughts: Einstein's Quest (5:00)
Eight-legged Essay
Full Seminar 3 (38:50)
1. Hellen: What is the methodology behind the relational ontology? (11:01)
2. Ram: If Relevance Realization is made possible by The View from Nowhere, are we somehow grounded in the View from Nowhere? (2:59)
3. Nathan: How do we relate to somebody who is at a less accommodating developmental stage? (7:48)
4. Gary: How does the circularity of consciousness interact with the linearity of intelligibility? (5:54)
5. Lance: Are you talking to physicists who are working on Grand Unified Theories and what do they think about your thought processes? (3:53)
6. Tom: Is Classical Theism a psychotechnology for exploring higher values? (5:53)
7. Closing Thoughts (1:22)

4. The Spiritual Significance of Einstein

Full Lecture 4 (70:10)
1. Introduction and Recap (9:00)
2. Leaps to the Gestalt (8:47)
3. Causal Emergence and Insight (5:16)
4. Sensibility Transcendence (4:30)
5. Synoptic integration (5:38)
6. The Tao's Rejection of Substance (6:08)
7. The Musicality of Intelligibility (12:57)
8. Goodness as a Premise (5:52)
9. The Non-Duality of Relevance (5:45)
10. Bridging to Spinoza (6:14)
Full Seminar 4 (48:18)
1. Kyle: What are your thoughts on the rejection of the sacred as "perfect" creating a dichotomy rather than a distinction? (7:23)
2. Loren: Is the Philosophical Silk Road the quest of knowing The One and if so, is the knowing that continually unfolds the knowing of the sacred? (4:34)
3. Krystof: What is Theurgy? (8:46)
4. Ram: How do you distinguish non-dualism and relativism and prevent the collapse of the former into the latter? (6:37)
5. Antonio: How does the inexhaustible fount of intelligibility show up in mundane, everyday tasks? (6:01)
6. Gary: What are the moral implications of rejecting a substance ontology? (6:55)
7. Jake: What is the limit to how much Imaginal practice can afford agency in group intersubjective processes? (8:00)

5. The Birth of the Enlightenment Ontology

Full Lecture 5 (81:47)
1. Introduction and Recap (13:10)
2. Spinoza's Character (2:52)
3. Thales's Ontological Analysis (5:34)
4. Aristotle's Substance Ontology (7:34)
5. Galileo's Mathematical Grammar (2:01)
6. Descartes's Contradictory Dualism (5:16)
7. Spinoza's Definition of Substance (6:00)
8. The Principle of Sufficient Reason (2:36)
9. Logic, Causation and Scientia Intuitiva (6:34)
10. There Can Only Be One "Substance" (8:20)
11. The Inexhaustible Attributes of No-Thing (5:09)
12. Things as "Modes" (5:01)
13. Spinoza's One (5:48)
14. What is Spinoza? (5:47)
Critical Essay
Full Seminar 5 (36:12)
1. Ram: How does Spinoza assess morality and well-being in his worldview? (4:12)
2. Neri: How do we actualize the worldview espoused by Spinoza on a collective scale? (9:56)
3. Gary: What is the position of the will in Spinoza's worldview? (4:26)
4. Krystof: What are some recommended readings for Spinoza? (4:19)
5. Todd: Is there a conatus of the One and how does it connect with optimal grip and virtual engines? (4:27)
6. Allan: Given that Spinoza considers things as "modes", is God then more real than us? How does this interact with say, the Buddhist worldview? (8:50)

6. Spinoza's Science

Full Lecture 6 (77:10)
1. Introduction and Recap (21:52)
2. Russell's Limitations (4:27)
3. Analysis (4:51)
4. Synthesis (2:07)
5. Concepts Are Not Definitions (4:08)
6. The Breakdown of the Enlightenment Framework (8:04)
7. Perception (5:35)
8. Predictive Processing (7:48)
9. Conflation into Participation (5:52)
10. Common Notions (7:07)
11. God Does Not Have Abstract Ideas (5:15)
Full Seminar 6 (39:10)
1. Rens: How does Spinoza's Ways of Knowing map onto your 4Ps of Knowing framework? (2:54)
2. Neri: Is The Flow State analogous to Spinoza's "blessedness"? (3:03)
3. Ram: Given your proposal of Inexhaustible Intelligibility, where do you draw the line between recovering ancient notions of truth with their present-moment experiential counterparts? (9:22)
4. Krystof: What is the significance of propositional knowing and how does this interact with Jung's Kantian disposition? (8:30)
5. Jonathan: Appreciation of the mutual quality of Nature (3:10)
6. Self-Sense (4:00)
7. Allan: How do I bring Spinoza into personal, philosophical practice? (6:54)
8. Ram: What do you see as the difference between the last Axial Revolution and the one you say is coming? (1:14)

7. Spinoza’s Religion

Full Lecture 7 (82:16)
1. Introduction and Recap (12:39)
2. Scientia Intuitiva (9:31)
3. Ontonormativity (7:30)
4. Gathering the Logos of Blessedness (9:30)
5. Intro to Carlisle (4:06)
6. Philosophy & Theology (3:49)
7. The Misguided Religion of the Self (5:11)
8. Religio and Spiritual Exercises (7:44)
9. Reading the Ethics (6:08)
10. The Ratio of Imagination through Reason (6:42)
11. Non-egoic Freedom in Voluntary Neccessity (9:21)
Critical Essay (to Carlisle)
Full Seminar 7 (37:48)
1. Neri: How can Spinoza's worldview be made more accessible to the general population where that seems to be necessary? (5:33)
2. Kyle: Would you consider reading philosophy as a spiritual practice to be fundamental to reading philosophy itself? (3:42)
3. Ram: On authority, given that one needs to be in relation to some normative standard to ameliorate self-deception, how does one choose the right authority without falling into narcissistic self-aggrandizement or nihilistic hedonism? (8:47)
4. Gary's Contribution to the Argument (7:27)
5. John: How can we reframe the current popular Christian notion of eternity with Spinoza's worldview and the scientific worldview? (5:05)
6. Krystof: What were your main takeaways from the Gospel Seminars on Daily Wire and how do you think you impacted the roundtable the most? (7:12)

8. Spinoza's God

Full Lecture 8 (89:08)
1. Introduction and Recap (16:32)
2. Real Self-Realization of Reality (4:52)
3. What Religion is Not (5:48)
4. God is Neither Subject Nor Object (4:20)
5. Being-in-God (8:50)
6. Profound Intimacy (6:15)
7. Blessedness and Plato (3:43)
8. How Do We Realize Blessedness (7:27)
9. Collective Blessedness Through Agape (4:27)
10. Spinoza's View of Jesus (3:49)
11. Enlightenment as Ontological Flow (6:12)
12. Reframing Eternal Life (4:37)
13. Reframing Eternal Love (5:19)
14. Without Nostalgia but with Religio (5:28)
15. How to Read Spinoza's Works (1:26)
Eight-legged Essay
1. Todd: Is Relevance Realization absent in a state of blessedness? (5:09)
2. Tom: What do you think of the notion of Eternal Life as being our Conatus outliving our mortal body? (2:08)
3. Harry: How do the Buddhist notions of identification map onto Spinoza's ontology? (4:08)
4. Ram: Is there anything that is still missing from Spinoza? (5:01)
5. Nathan: What are some of the other attributes of God that we might need to be aware of? (3:27)
6. Krystof: What does Spinoza think of the non-duality of God and Man in Jesus? (6:50)
7. Allan: Is blessedness what Blake would call falling in "love with the productions of time?" (8:47)

Teach online with

2. Useful Fictions

Lesson content locked

If you're already enrolled, you'll need to login.

Enroll in Course to Unlock