Episode 54: Lobsters, Pianos, and Hidden Gods

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2019

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"All things feel," Pythagoas said. Panpsychism, the belief that consciousnes is a property of all things and not limited to the human brain, is back in vogue -- with good reason. The problem of how inert matter could give rise to subjectivity and feeling has proved insoluble under the dominant assumptions of a hard materialism. Recently, the American filmmaker Errol Morris presented his own brand of panpsychism in a long-form essay entitled, "The Pianist and the Lobster," published in the New York Times. The essay opens with an episode from the life of Sviatoslav Richter, namely a time where the famous Russian pianist couldn't perform without a plastic lobster waiting for him in the wings. In Morris's piece, the curious anecdote sounds the first note of what turns out to be a polyphony of thoughts and ideas on consciousness, agency, Nerval's image of the the "Hidden God," and the deep weirdness of music. Phil and JF use Morris's essay to create a polyphony of their own. REFERENCES Errol Morris, "The Pianist and the Lobster" Sviatoslav Richter, Russian pianist Nick Cave., Red Hand Files #53 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Bruno Monsaingeon (dir.), Richter: The Enigma Bon Jovi, "Livin’ on a Prayer" Brad Warner, "The Eyes of Dogen" Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Edgard Varèse, composer Benjamin Libet, neuroscientist Robin Hardy (dir), The Wicker Man Frans De Waal, Mama’s Last Hug Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego Tarot de Marseille - XVIII: The Moon Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life Carl Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry", The Red Book Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods 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.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weird'm J.F. Martel. Today we discuss the essay, The Pianist and the Lobster,
0:57.1	by the American documentary filmmaker, author, and philosopher, Errol Morris. Phil and I do a decent
1:04.4	job of summarizing the essay in the course of our conversation, so you should be able to follow
1:09.4	without reading it. But it's a fascinating
1:11.4	read, so we recommend you check it out on the New York Times website. One word that comes up in our chat,
1:18.5	but doesn't in the essay, is panpsychism. For those who don't know, panpsychism is the belief
1:23.9	that consciousness is a property of all things, a fundamental constituent of reality.
1:29.6	For the panpsychists, somehow, everything has consciousness, not just animals, but also
1:35.3	sunflowers, thermostats, nebulas, beach pebbles, and to yodas. It isn't so much that these
1:41.0	things can think and feel as we do, but that what we call thought
1:45.4	and feeling is already present, in an alien form, perhaps, in all those things.
1:51.4	The Greeks were big on panpsychism.
1:53.9	Pythagoras maintained the quote, all things feel, and the philosopher Thales famously said,
1:59.8	All things are full of gods.
2:02.2	That such a seemingly bizarre idea could gain currency in the modern world, as it seems to be doing even among academic philosophers today, is another surprising twist in this age full of surprising twists.
2:15.9	It's certainly an idea that Phil and I take seriously, as
2:19.0	regular listeners will know. And it's something Errol Morris, it turns out, also seems to take
2:24.8	seriously. In his piece, Morris argues that the mental acts we moderns have tethered to the human
2:31.0	mind, creativity, expression, intention, meaning, and so on, are always
2:36.8	already tangled in webs that involve non-human things, which, for their part, have a share in the agency
	...

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