Episode 131: Knocking on the Abyssal Door: Live at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2022

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The historian of religion Jeffrey J. Kripal writes, "The world is one, and the human is two." The line captures the riddle of reality. What is it with our species? Equipped with an intellect able to grok the basic laws that govern the physical universe, we seem unable to wrap our heads around as simple a question as "What is real?". Recorded live before a learned audience at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) in August of 2022, this episode approaches the enigma by teasing the Weird out of the very idea of intellection. If the architects of DISI are right to say that mind, far from being confined to human skulls, enjoys wide distribution across nature, what might such ideas as magic, synchronicity, and prophecy tell us about intelligence and meaning? DISI is a three-week interdisciplinary event held each year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The hosts are grateful to Jacob Foster and Erica Cartmill of UCLA for inviting them to speak at the institute. **Header image: **Detail of The Ancient of Days by William Blake. SHOW NOTES Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) Earlier iteration of Jacob Foster's talk, "Toward a Social Science of the Possible" Pauline Oliveros's Tuning Meditation Norbert Wiener, American mathematician Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande Aristotle, Physics and Metaphysics Jeffrey J. Kripal, "The World is One, and the Human is Two: Tentative Conclusions of a Working Historian of Religion" Jeffrey Kripal on Weird Studies: episodes ## and ## Aleister Crowley, See The Vision and the Voice and Magick in Theory and Practice The "Unwritten Doctrines" of Plato Plato, Republic, "Seventh Letter" & Phaedrus Phil's prophetic dream report (Patreon supporters only) H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (for description of Azathoth) C. G. Jung, Synchroncity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Alchemical Studies & Mysterium Coniunctionis Charles Taylor, A Secular Age New York Times article on 2022 UFO hearings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:02.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.0	For more episodes or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdstud J.F. Martel. In our last episode, we discussed a couple of live
0:55.4	recordings we did in the UK this summer. Today, we released the first of those, a conversation
1:00.7	that took place on the last day of the Diverse Intelligence's Summer Institute, a UCLA initiative
1:06.2	held at the University of St. Andrews on the Scottish East Coast. Called D.C. for short, the Institute is an
1:12.9	academic event and scholarly community devoted to broadening and deepening our understanding of
1:18.1	intelligence, as it manifests not just in humans, but also in animals, machines, and who knows what
1:23.6	else. Faculty come from a broad range of disciplines, as do the young PhDs and early
1:29.7	career academics who participate. Reading now from the website, quote, our world is full of
1:35.3	intelligences, diverse manifestations of mind and cognition, of agency and awareness. How do these
1:42.1	radically different forms come about? What core properties do they share?
1:47.0	What can we learn from minds that are nothing like our own? How can we better understand
1:51.5	intelligences by modeling, building, and programming them? Answering these questions will not be easy.
1:58.0	It will require breaking down the boundaries that divide traditional academic disciplines.
2:02.8	It will require forging new frameworks and imagining radically new approaches."
2:07.3	The sociologist Jacob Foster is one of the founders of D.C., and it was Jacob who invited
2:13.6	Phil and me to this year's institute. At the end of the three-week event, Jacob gave a talk
2:19.2	on the need to develop a social science of the possible. I'll resist the urge to dig into that
2:24.7	brilliant talk now, as we're going to have Jacob on as a guest very soon. Suffice it to say that
2:30.4	what he's proposing would truly be a science of the weird. The fact that Jacob's
	...

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