Latest / Mahon McCann / DC Schindler - Did PLATO warn us about THE INTERNET in 375 BC?

Transcript

DC Schindler - Did PLATO warn us about THE INTERNET in 375 BC? · Mahon McCann

0:01
SPEAKER_01: DC Schindler, thank you very much for joining me again.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: This is actually our third podcast, a trilogy, I believe.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: Good number, yes.
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yeah um and yeah the impetus for this conversation um sure
0:15
discussing is plato's
0:17
critique of images in the republic as i say i was teaching a
0:19
course last semester
0:20
uh on the undergraduates for on plato's republic and something
0:24
that kept coming up
0:25
was the critique of images and you know you're asking a lot of
0:28
questions about like
0:28
why is he critiquing images why is he so opposed to the poets
0:31
you know even book 10
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SPEAKER_01: and you know he's creating images but he's
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SPEAKER_01: he's not happy with the images and,
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SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: and then how this relates to the internet and,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: our imagistic society is,
0:41
SPEAKER_01: uh,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
0:43
SPEAKER_01: I thought a great topic,
0:45
SPEAKER_01: um,
0:45
SPEAKER_01: to pick your brain on and see what you think.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: So maybe if you could introduce like the,
0:50
SPEAKER_01: his critique of images and you know what,
0:52
SPEAKER_01: um,
0:53
SPEAKER_01: your,
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SPEAKER_01: your take on it to start off.
0:55
So,
0:56
I mean,
0:56
you know,
0:56
he's notorious for the famous,
0:58
uh,
0:58
ancient quarrel with the poets and,
1:01
in this ideal city in the Republic,
1:04
he kicks them out famously,
1:06
so notoriously again.
1:09
And people have often read this as a kind of a moralistic
1:14
rejection of art and
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SPEAKER_02: artists and poets and so forth.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think that, you know, they condemn Plato for that.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: And then at the same time, they, with a certain snicker,
1:29
point to the fact that he himself is obviously a consummate
1:32
artist and the republic
1:35
as a text is a great you know poem in a way it's a it's a work
1:39
of art it's a it's
1:40
an artistic creation an artifact so he seems to be
1:43
contradicting himself and so
1:44
SPEAKER_02: forth and i and i think the the issue is is um it's far more complex and
1:49
SPEAKER_02: interesting than those uh sort of uh dismissive critiques tend to be uh
1:58
SPEAKER_02: It seems to me,
1:58
SPEAKER_02: first of all,
1:59
that Plato was in fact concerned about the role that poetry in
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particular had in
2:08
SPEAKER_02: his culture.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: In the beginning of the Allegory of the Cave,
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SPEAKER_02: he actually presents it as an image of education and
2:19
So it's interesting,
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what in the world does this have to do with education?
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SPEAKER_02: I think it's helpful to realize that in ancient Greece,
2:31
SPEAKER_02: as one classicist said,
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SPEAKER_02: Homer was the educator of the Greeks,
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SPEAKER_02: that poetry was one of the principal means by which...
2:43
SPEAKER_02: the citizens were educated.
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They were taught about the world,
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the nature of reality,
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and so forth,
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and also taught virtue.
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And obviously,
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a reason for that would be the fact that images can speak to us
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in ways that are
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SPEAKER_02: That have an effect on us.
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SPEAKER_02: They impact us.
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SPEAKER_02: They form our imagination.
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SPEAKER_02: They dispose us in certain ways.
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They don't just teach us information,
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but they teach us to love and hate different things.
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SPEAKER_02: They move us.
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SPEAKER_02: And so Plato was aware of that.
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And his concern wasn't so much with that fact as it is that
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that was done in a way
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SPEAKER_02: that was unaware,
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SPEAKER_02: was unconscious of the effect and without much discrimination,
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SPEAKER_02: without much attention to,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: in a more profound way,
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SPEAKER_02: what was being communicated.
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So it seems to me what he's doing in the Republic is not so
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much rejecting that
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SPEAKER_02: practice as retrieving it within,
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SPEAKER_02: you might say,
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SPEAKER_02: a purified or a kind of re-envisioned.
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program that actually is attentive to the fundamental questions
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about the nature of truth,
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SPEAKER_02: the nature of the good.
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SPEAKER_02: And so it's sort of reoriented in a positive direction.
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And that gives the imagery,
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the philosopher,
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a certain freedom with respect to the images.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, there would be a million things.
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SPEAKER_02: I don't, you know, I could go on for 45 minutes.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really great.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: No, I don't want to just send you out to see you.
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SPEAKER_01: Because it is so central to all of his thought as well.
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But I really that point of like that he's almost trying to
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overcome Homer,
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SPEAKER_01: even though he loves Homer.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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He's trying to like almost put Socrates in the place of
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Achilles or Odysseus and
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SPEAKER_01: have the philosopher king as the new hero.
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versus the older kind of warrior king ideal and obviously the
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philosopher king
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loves the truth loves the whole of the truth and so you know
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there's a kind of
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SPEAKER_01: redemption of images there I mean
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right yeah i don't know does that is that landing does that
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make sense yeah
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absolutely that's and the redemption of images is a nice
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exactly a nice way to put
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it i he he loved i mean that's there there's evidence that he
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had a deep attraction
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to home in fact he also um the legend is that that he had
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thought of himself as a
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SPEAKER_02: playwright that that was sort of the path
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That and statesmanship were kind of a path that he was
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originally going to follow
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SPEAKER_02: before he met Socrates.
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SPEAKER_02: But I think it's really helpful to see,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: it's not a rejection of,
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SPEAKER_02: it's an assumption of poetry in service of the truth.
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SPEAKER_02: And the philosopher king doesn't destroy the cave.
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SPEAKER_02: He enters back into it.
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SPEAKER_02: He goes back down into it, into the realm of images.
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SPEAKER_02: But the point is he wants to do it in a liberating mode.
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SPEAKER_02: And so what is it that liberates us from images?
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SPEAKER_02: It's not that we remove them necessarily,
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but that we enter into genuine contact with the reality of
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which they are images.
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SPEAKER_02: And that allows us,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: he says this about words,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: words,
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SPEAKER_02: writing is meant to be
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: a reminder for those who know,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: rather than a substitute,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: you can memorize words and not really understand something,
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SPEAKER_02: but if you understand it,
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SPEAKER_02: the words are actually,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: bring it to my,
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SPEAKER_02: bring it actively to mind and really helpful way.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what images are meant to be for Plato is,
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SPEAKER_02: is having,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: having glimpsed,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: having turned one soul towards the good and the true,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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we can celebrate in a genuinely free and more playful spirit
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what is contained in
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SPEAKER_02: the images because we're not trapped by them,
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SPEAKER_02: you might say.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes,
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and is there kind of a reaction to the sophists there as well
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in that they use
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SPEAKER_01: images to manipulate people?
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SPEAKER_01: I know you talked about in the book
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appearances as being manipulative in a way that they're you
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know you can use these
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kind of affective images in order to drive people certain ways
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and shape their
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salience and it's almost like the good the good artist in a
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sense like the
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philosopher king is are using those images to to have a an
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affecting relationship
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towards the good yeah but then other people can use it to have
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an affecting
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relationship towards lower goods or towards their own towards
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ultimately their own
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_02: Self-interest.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the things I find really helpful with the comparison.
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SPEAKER_02: So the sophists were teachers,
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SPEAKER_02: but of course they,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: they sold their courses as opposed to Socrates who taught for free.
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SPEAKER_02: And interestingly, Socrates wouldn't describe himself as a teacher.
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SPEAKER_02: He said,
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SPEAKER_02: in the sense of someone who puts knowledge into the souls,
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SPEAKER_02: or you think of it as transmitting information.
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SPEAKER_02: Instead, he uses the image of the mautes in Greek, the midwife.
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SPEAKER_02: And that's not somebody who gives you the truth,
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SPEAKER_02: but who actually facilitates the relationship with the truth.
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The midwife does not impregnate the woman,
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but helps the woman give birth to the child.
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And Socrates wants to help the soul give birth to insight that
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rather than
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SPEAKER_02: provide it, but mediate, allow it to come forth.
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And what's interesting there is what he's doing is he's
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mediating an immediate relationship.
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SPEAKER_02: You know,
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he becomes sort of an instrument by which you as the student
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achieve a direct
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SPEAKER_02: insight into truth.
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SPEAKER_02: And,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: in the Republic there,
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SPEAKER_02: it's interesting,
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SPEAKER_02: he says,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: the teacher is not,
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SPEAKER_02: teaching is not
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putting information into the soul but turning it around to face
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the truth and that
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relationship to the truth is one that's immediate directly from
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the soul's own
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immediate relation so I think he uses that extended metaphor
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doesn't he as well of
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like coupling of like an intercourse and of giving birth as
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knowledge essentially
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SPEAKER_01: like carnal almost that metaphor of like to know
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SPEAKER_01: in a biblical sense of like a carnal knowledge,
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SPEAKER_01: but that actually coming to reality involves this coupling to reality.
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It's not just like taking in,
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you know,
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passive propositions or something like that.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's right.
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SPEAKER_02: It's an intimacy and intercourse.
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And that's the word that he uses between the soul and being and,
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and knowledge is produced.
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SPEAKER_02: has generated.
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SPEAKER_02: Um,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: so,
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SPEAKER_02: so the,
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SPEAKER_02: the,
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SPEAKER_02: the midwife,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: allows this relationship to happen,
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SPEAKER_02: but isn't,
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SPEAKER_02: isn't the,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: the governor of it or the,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: the,
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SPEAKER_02: isn't the manipulator of it.
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SPEAKER_02: You know,
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SPEAKER_02: it's interesting in the,
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SPEAKER_02: if you were to look at the details of the allegory of the cave,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: it seems to me the sophists would be the ones who are behind the wall,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: uh,
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SPEAKER_02: who are fabricating the images,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
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SPEAKER_02: and moving them that,
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SPEAKER_02: that,
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that then project their shadows on the wall that the prisoners
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are sort of forced to,
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SPEAKER_02: to see though it's those people.
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He doesn't say much about them in the allegory,
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but they are people there.
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SPEAKER_02: And it seems to me,
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SPEAKER_02: those are the sophists and they're the,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: they're the,
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SPEAKER_02: the,
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SPEAKER_02: the,
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SPEAKER_02: the ones who in a way produce the,
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SPEAKER_02: the images,
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SPEAKER_02: um,
11:06
that are taken might help to pause on the cave for a second
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because it does i guess
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the proposal i'm making with the internet thing is like have we
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built a kind of
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SPEAKER_01: digital cave in in a sense that we have like
11:18
SPEAKER_01: for me,
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SPEAKER_01: I suppose the companies that are behind it a lot are the,
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SPEAKER_01: the sofas in that they're manipulating what people are seeing there.
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SPEAKER_01: And even just by the structure of the platform,
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SPEAKER_01: like it,
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SPEAKER_01: it incentivizes certain things and disincentivizes others.
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SPEAKER_01: And then also you have the problem with just,
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SPEAKER_01: you're creating representations anyway,
11:34
SPEAKER_01: which Plato would probably freak out about,
11:36
SPEAKER_01: but you know,
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SPEAKER_01: I wonder,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: are we in a kind of digital cave?
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SPEAKER_01: And then I wonder,
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SPEAKER_01: can we get to,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: is there a way to,
11:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:45
SPEAKER_01: get that journey out of the cave in us?
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Well,
11:48
SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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that's it's funny when I was a graduate student and studied the
11:56
the Republic with
11:57
SPEAKER_02: Eric Pearl,
11:58
SPEAKER_02: who's I don't know if you're familiar with him,
12:00
SPEAKER_02: but he's he was a real mentor to me in graduate school.
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SPEAKER_02: I recall him saying once,
12:07
SPEAKER_02: so,
12:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: this would would have been whatever,
12:09
SPEAKER_02: 25 years ago,
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that he never understood how anybody could teach the Republic
12:16
before the invention
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SPEAKER_02: of television.
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SPEAKER_02: And he was talking about television.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think the smartphone is an absolute,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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this is one of the things you realize that what Plato was
12:26
saying there is just
12:27
SPEAKER_02: getting truer and truer every year.
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SPEAKER_02: And the point, you know, the point is, I mean...
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one had to make this kind of fantastical imaginative leap to
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understand what he was
12:39
SPEAKER_02: talking about,
12:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:41
SPEAKER_02: say in the Middle Ages.
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SPEAKER_02: But, you know, it has become so real for us.
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SPEAKER_02: So,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:50
SPEAKER_02: this theme that you mentioned,
12:53
SPEAKER_02: the internet,
12:54
SPEAKER_02: and I think the smartphone really in particular,
12:57
People are regularly now and increasingly observing that people
13:04
have less and less
13:06
SPEAKER_02: an unmediated experience of reality.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
13:09
SPEAKER_02: almost everything that we connect with,
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SPEAKER_02: especially intellectually,
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SPEAKER_02: somehow is mediated through the screen.
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SPEAKER_02: I like to call it a portal because it's actually a two-way door.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a two-way door.
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SPEAKER_02: And that,
13:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:32
SPEAKER_02: quite commonly,
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
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SPEAKER_02: in a way that's just frightening,
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SPEAKER_02: actually,
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SPEAKER_02: this is the case from,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: two years old and up.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
13:41
SPEAKER_02: maybe even earlier,
13:42
SPEAKER_02: I see some of the smallest children in the grocery store who are,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: in the grocery cart with the screen on,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:51
SPEAKER_02: and you just think about...
13:55
SPEAKER_02: this observation and always have some experience of this,
13:58
SPEAKER_02: but I think it would be especially the case for young people where,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: I grew up in a time before all this existed.
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SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, that's, that's, that's already something.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, these days it's all we have.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: People recognize that we,
14:13
we start to measure our experiences and our realities by the
14:19
standard of the screen,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: you know?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: Our relationships are measured by, you know,
14:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:26
SPEAKER_02: movie relations or,
14:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:30
SPEAKER_02: things that we experience and are even like our sense of our own body,
14:35
we can interpret except in relation to the images we see on the
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screen and so forth.
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SPEAKER_02: So increasingly, these become the standard by which reality is measured.
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SPEAKER_02: And that is, you know, in a nutshell, part of the problem for Plato.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a reversal as well.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Because,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: even you're talking about,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: unmediated experience,
14:54
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:55
SPEAKER_01: not on a smartphone or something.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: But we're still then in the world of objects,
14:58
SPEAKER_01: which Plato is like,
14:59
SPEAKER_01: that's,
15:00
SPEAKER_01: like,
15:00
SPEAKER_01: not the actual one.
15:03
But we're actually getting the opposite direction,
15:05
like,
15:07
into a kind of simulacrum.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the Matrix is a kind of updated version of the cave.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Also,
15:15
SPEAKER_01: John Brevakey talks about that two worlds mythology,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: this idea that I don't really think Plato has a two worlds mythology.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a reality.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, but there is the more illusory world of the cave.
15:26
The world of appearances is becoming the normal world for
15:30
people now with the digital.
15:32
And I think a lot of the externalities we see for young people
15:35
and the mental
15:36
SPEAKER_01: health crisis and a lot of this stuff is because they're living in a,
15:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:40
SPEAKER_01: a simulation world.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: It's often described as a crisis of isolation and loneliness.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Think of the irony.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: These things are all called social media.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: It's precisely this that's creating this crisis of isolation,
16:00
SPEAKER_02: and that is that Plato presents the people in the cave as even
16:07
SPEAKER_02: Even they hear their own voice reflected off the back screen.
16:12
And then they encounter the people sitting next to them only in
16:18
terms of their own
16:19
SPEAKER_02: voices and images reflected off the screen.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: So there's actually no direct.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: There's no two-way communication between them.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: They don't even know it's there.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: in the image.
16:31
And I thought it was very interesting that even the game they
16:34
play of the guessing
16:35
SPEAKER_01: of the shadows,
16:36
it's very much like the kind of predictive natural science game
16:40
in a sense of
16:41
efficient causes that you can measure and predict and that
16:46
qualifies as knowledge,
16:47
SPEAKER_01: whereas Plato's version of knowledge is very different.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's an excellent point.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: That's a really good point.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for Plato, it's like depth of insight.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: And in this, there's no depth.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: It's all surfaces.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: So it's just predictability.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: And you're right.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting, kind of a positivism, an empirical positivism.
17:11
And maybe it's the result of empirical positivism in a sense of
17:14
that's what truth
17:15
SPEAKER_01: is in that paradigm.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: I have kind of thought that at times it's like if you reduce,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: if sense experience is just passive access to reality,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: then that is the truth.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: what we talked about last time,
17:26
SPEAKER_01: the correspondence theory,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: just like,
17:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:28
SPEAKER_01: truth is just the cat is on the mat.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: You say the cat is on the mat.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: That's truth.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Whereas the whole Platonic version of truth is totally,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: that's,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: that would be being in the cave,
17:39
SPEAKER_01: which is,
17:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: the lowest level of reality.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's,
17:42
SPEAKER_02: that's the,
17:43
SPEAKER_02: that we can't,
17:44
we can't even imagine what it would mean to go further because
17:47
we're stuck with this.
17:48
Just,
17:48
you've got a representation that either corresponds to a state
17:52
of affairs or it doesn't.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Rather than this depth of insight that,
17:56
SPEAKER_02: that occurs only when you ask the question,
17:59
SPEAKER_02: what is something,
18:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
18:01
SPEAKER_02: that that that sort of change.
18:03
But I'd like to you brought something up and I don't want to
18:06
lose it because it's a
18:07
SPEAKER_02: really intriguing point that I've wondered about,
18:09
SPEAKER_02: too.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: And,
18:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
18:10
SPEAKER_02: might bring out a certain dimension beyond Plato's allegory that that,
18:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
18:18
SPEAKER_02: Plato wouldn't be content,
18:20
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
18:20
SPEAKER_02: with going out into the natural world,
18:23
SPEAKER_02: but wants to see even the natural world as an image.
18:27
SPEAKER_02: And our cave has become so powerful, mighty, and comprehensive.
18:38
For us even to get out into the world of nature is just a
18:41
massive achievement itself.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And it seems to me that that
18:48
SPEAKER_02: What's interesting,
18:49
SPEAKER_02: and I guess we can look at Plato's allegory here,
18:52
that would correspond to somebody who's turned around and has
18:56
come to see that the
18:59
projections on the cave wall are actually emanating from these
19:04
figurines that are
19:05
SPEAKER_02: being manipulated here.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: But you notice,
19:08
SPEAKER_02: if you think about it,
19:09
SPEAKER_02: once you've made that turn,
19:11
you already see the light at the end of the tunnel and the
19:16
sunlight already in the distance.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: The principle,
19:21
you could still say something like entering into the natural
19:25
world and sort of
19:26
SPEAKER_02: recognizing its priority over the image world would lead inevitably,
19:35
SPEAKER_02: if you were faithful to it,
19:37
SPEAKER_02: to an insight into the source of truth.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: And there's something there that like,
19:43
SPEAKER_01: this is a bit of a,
19:44
SPEAKER_01: maybe a crazy suggestion,
19:45
SPEAKER_01: but that the attentional manipulation that happens in the digital world,
19:49
SPEAKER_01: if you get so manipulated by that,
19:51
SPEAKER_01: if you can go beyond this,
19:53
SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
19:54
you would see how your previous reality was a kind of
19:57
construction of these things.
19:59
So you would get an insight in a sense to how your attention
20:01
can be warped,
20:03
which might help you to intuit that there's actually things
20:06
beyond your own
20:08
current umwelt or perceptual world well i mean in fact more
20:12
than just might help
20:13
you i i think it's implied already in i mean because you
20:17
wouldn't be able to see
20:19
SPEAKER_02: what what it would what manipulation would mean and
20:23
unless you have already sort of present some sense of a reality
20:27
that you're deviating from.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: So,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: so because if there's,
20:31
SPEAKER_02: if there's nothing but manipulation,
20:32
SPEAKER_02: then manipulate,
20:33
SPEAKER_02: then manipulation is no different.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's no, there's no standard by which to measure it.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: It's not really manipulation then.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: That's so injured.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: That's such a problem in the social media literature.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the time,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: cause like the crime,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: I think that they're committing is like setting up almost like a culture,
20:49
SPEAKER_01: like a culture that fosters a crazy,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: that fosters like,
20:53
SPEAKER_01: people behaving in self-destructive ways,
20:56
SPEAKER_01: like a foolish culture in a sense,
20:58
SPEAKER_01: but you have to have a,
20:59
SPEAKER_01: a notion of a wise culture to evaluate that in a sense.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: So like,
21:04
like if they're setting up just this Hollywood movie kind of
21:06
nonsense thing for children,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
21:09
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
21:09
SPEAKER_01: it's like they can do that,
21:10
but you have to have an idea of a functioning culture in order
21:12
to evaluate that already.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: No, you're right.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: And you know, this leads to so many interesting questions.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: I, um, there's people that want to critique that culture too.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: the, you know, manipulative culture of images and so forth.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: You can't really do that unless you're standing on solid ground somehow.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: So as you say,
21:35
SPEAKER_02: there's got to be,
21:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:36
SPEAKER_02: this idea of,
21:37
SPEAKER_02: for instance,
21:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:39
this is something that was brought home to me regarding the Me
21:43
Too movement,
21:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:44
SPEAKER_02: and
21:45
SPEAKER_02: This idea that,
21:48
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
21:51
shining a light on this widespread practice of harassment and exploitation,
21:57
SPEAKER_02: so forth.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: All that is true, but it's interesting.
22:00
The problem is that people take consent to be the solution to
22:07
the problem.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: If it's a matter of consent, then somehow...
22:12
SPEAKER_02: But the more people thought about it,
22:14
SPEAKER_02: the more they realized,
22:15
SPEAKER_02: well,
22:15
SPEAKER_02: wait a minute,
22:16
SPEAKER_02: you might be giving your consent,
22:19
SPEAKER_02: but the person is a figure of power.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: And so even your consent has been manipulated and so forth.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: And it becomes clear that there's no way to finally distinguish between
22:30
SPEAKER_02: manipulation and freedom unless you refer to something objectively true.
22:39
So,
22:39
you know,
22:40
and that's something that's missed often from these things.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: But it seems to me that that's a fundamentally platonic insight that,
22:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
22:50
SPEAKER_02: unless truth is there,
22:51
SPEAKER_02: there's no such thing as freedom.
22:53
There's no such thing as there's no liberation from
22:56
manipulation unless you're
22:58
SPEAKER_02: talking about truth and not just consent or,
23:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:02
SPEAKER_02: whatever sort of willingness.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: And that truth,
23:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
23:07
SPEAKER_01: is like it doesn't really exist,
23:09
SPEAKER_01: I think,
23:09
SPEAKER_01: in this kind of secular landscape.
23:12
Like they don't have an account like scientific materialism
23:15
can't provide that.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Like it doesn't.
23:18
You know,
23:18
and so we're kind of locked in then into this manipulative space.
23:21
I think that's why social media has gotten away with what
23:23
they're doing in a sense,
23:24
because there isn't like there isn't enough people on the
23:28
outside of it to actually
23:29
SPEAKER_01: be like,
23:29
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: this is,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:31
SPEAKER_01: incredibly manipulative because we've lost that reality.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: No, you're absolutely right.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing then at the end, you know.
23:38
It's sort of,
23:39
we don't want them to manipulate,
23:40
we want to be the ones manipulating.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: It's not a question of whether there's manipulation,
23:47
SPEAKER_02: it's just a dispute over who gets to do the manipulating,
23:52
SPEAKER_02: but none of that is real freedom.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: And you're right,
23:56
there's no way out of this without some moment of genuine
24:02
transcendence where the
24:04
SPEAKER_02: light of the good
24:07
And this is something that was the birth of that book,
24:14
Plato's Critique of Pure Reason.
24:16
And I've been coming back to recently with some work I've been
24:21
doing on the nature of authority.
24:24
There's something about the bearing witness that you need to
24:29
have an individual,
24:30
some concrete human being who bears witness to a higher order
24:35
that actually lets
24:36
SPEAKER_02: the light in.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know of any real way out other than that.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of what Plato's doing in the Republic, in a sense.
24:45
Because that's why the Republic just seems so relevant to me
24:48
with the social media stuff,
24:49
SPEAKER_01: because he's setting up a society,
24:51
SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
24:52
SPEAKER_01: a city in speech and this kind of stuff.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: That, you know, fails.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: And then he has to be like, well, what's going on with us?
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Why does this fail?
24:59
And,
24:59
you know,
25:00
what is the reality behind that that is,
25:03
you know,
25:03
going to validate what we do?
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Because in some sense,
25:06
SPEAKER_01: any social structure you set up,
25:07
SPEAKER_01: if it's not aimed at the truth,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: is manipulative.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: It is any culture you set up as manipulative,
25:12
SPEAKER_01: any educate,
25:13
SPEAKER_01: like you can't teach people anything unless it's going towards the truth.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it's manipulation.
25:19
So Plato seemed to discover that as he was almost doing it to
25:23
find the good behind it.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:26
And I think the the the witness of Socrates is what sort of
25:31
liberated him,
25:32
SPEAKER_02: because,
25:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
25:33
SPEAKER_02: what is it that Socrates does?
25:34
SPEAKER_02: Socrates, you know, in a way, he says the the in order to
25:42
actually do justice to what's highest you have to relativize
25:46
everything to it and
25:48
that means even your own life and your own you know you know
25:53
aspirations and
25:54
interests and so forth all all are relativized to this thing
25:59
and a life that bears
26:00
SPEAKER_02: witness to that um
26:03
SPEAKER_02: might be said then to manifest absoluteness precisely in a relative way.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so you get the paradox there.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: You know,
26:13
it's you have you have a single individual that brings into the
26:19
horizon somehow
26:20
SPEAKER_02: something that's greater than any single individual.
26:24
And that's because I remember you saying that Plato kind of
26:26
sets up Socrates almost
26:27
SPEAKER_01: as an image of the good,
26:28
SPEAKER_01: like he's a symbol that points towards the good in his life.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
26:33
SPEAKER_02: no,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: I think that that's and again,
26:35
SPEAKER_02: precisely because,
26:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:37
SPEAKER_02: he says nothing that he does.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: is any value to him unless it's somehow related to, to the good.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: So,
26:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
26:45
SPEAKER_02: you see that in the apology,
26:46
SPEAKER_02: then you can see it,
26:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:48
SPEAKER_02: the evidence of this in the symposium in a really powerful way,
26:52
SPEAKER_02: but it,
26:52
SPEAKER_02: it,
26:53
SPEAKER_02: it appears in a lot of his dialogues.
26:56
Um,
26:57
you know,
26:57
and that's,
26:57
that's something like in our contemporary world when we have,
27:00
um,
27:01
um,
27:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:02
SPEAKER_02: the idea that the highest things are personal matters and therefore,
27:08
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:09
SPEAKER_02: sort of subject simply to private opinion,
27:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:13
SPEAKER_02: in a way you can never get
27:16
the light of of the of the good in the cave you know you've
27:21
that's that's like
27:21
sealing the the horizon in a kind of an absolute way it's it's
27:26
it's really
27:26
remarkable how that all works and and how much we're in that at
27:32
the moment i think
27:32
is really the big problem there seems to be almost like a
27:34
developmental thing as
27:35
well i don't know if this makes sense of like the journey of
27:38
the cave that it's a
27:39
SPEAKER_01: journey from egocentrism
27:41
SPEAKER_01: to bono centrism yeah yeah from from the the movement out of this just
27:46
self-orientation where it's like i i'm man is the measure of
27:50
all things to the good
27:51
is the measure of all things like that there's a super
27:54
individual measure that you
27:56
bear witness to so you believe in it i don't know like you have
27:58
to almost have this
28:00
like how do you get a whole society or civilization to to
28:04
believe in that or do you
28:05
SPEAKER_01: like i don't know how
28:07
SPEAKER_01: how that even happened in the past.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: I,
28:10
SPEAKER_02: I,
28:10
SPEAKER_02: well,
28:10
SPEAKER_02: it seems to me that's,
28:11
SPEAKER_02: this is why,
28:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
28:12
SPEAKER_02: um,
28:13
SPEAKER_02: the sense of,
28:13
SPEAKER_02: of what an authority was in,
28:15
SPEAKER_02: in traditional cultures was in a way,
28:19
SPEAKER_02: someone who symbolically represents in his person,
28:23
SPEAKER_02: something that transcends the,
28:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
28:26
SPEAKER_02: um,
28:27
SPEAKER_02: historical reality of the particular community.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Um,
28:31
And,
28:31
you know,
28:32
on behalf of the community,
28:33
I think that that's a role that one has.
28:36
But I like,
28:37
I want to just highlight the way you said,
28:39
egocentrism to bonocentrism.
28:43
Typically,
28:44
we would say egocentrism towards altruism,
28:47
you know,
28:49
selfishness or altruism.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: And that's a problematic dualism that I think is a very, very common one.
28:59
It's very different if you say not that you want to become
29:02
other-centered rather
29:03
SPEAKER_02: than self-centered,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: but good-centered,
29:07
because that actually affirms both the self and the other in
29:11
the proper way.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: And that's a genuine transcendence.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think that the way you phrase that is really crucial.
29:19
And it seems like that's what Socrates is trying to get them to
29:22
do in the Republic
29:23
SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
29:23
like Polymarcus and Thrasymachus and Cephalus and their kind of
29:27
definitions that
29:28
SPEAKER_01: they give of justice in book one are very much initially just like,
29:33
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
29:33
SPEAKER_01: egocentric definitions,
29:35
SPEAKER_01: like Cephalus wants to get away with his previous sins,
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Polymarcus likes war and business,
29:40
SPEAKER_01: and Thrasymachus is just like,
29:41
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
29:41
SPEAKER_01: I just want to be,
29:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
29:42
SPEAKER_01: run the show pretty much.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: So like they're locked into that frame and Socrates isn't just
29:49
SPEAKER_01: trying to show them that they're wrong or something like that.
29:51
He's trying to lead them to this higher understanding that
29:56
seems to orient everything else.
29:57
Like if you could just have that experience,
30:00
the other things will fall in line.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fall in line is exactly the point.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: It's not like you leave them behind.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can think of them as representing the three
30:10
SPEAKER_02: parts of the soul,
30:11
SPEAKER_02: the desiring part,
30:13
SPEAKER_02: the thematic,
30:14
SPEAKER_02: spirited part,
30:15
SPEAKER_02: and then the head,
30:17
SPEAKER_02: Cephalus,
30:18
SPEAKER_02: being in a way the reasoning part.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: But it's not like you have to choose any one of these parts.
30:28
The soul itself is not the reference point,
30:31
but the good is the reference point.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And then when you see that,
30:35
SPEAKER_02: all the parts of the soul receive their due properly,
30:40
SPEAKER_02: which is why I think it's really important at the end,
30:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:43
SPEAKER_02: when Plato is comparing the philosopher king with the tyrant,
30:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:51
SPEAKER_02: as these two sort of opposites,
30:53
SPEAKER_02: which if you recall,
30:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
30:54
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of interesting.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: He had set up the whole republic as a kind of a contest.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: And he was challenged,
31:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:02
SPEAKER_02: show me that the person,
31:04
the just man who is treated by everyone as unjust and tortured
31:10
and imprisoned and
31:11
SPEAKER_02: even abandoned by God in a way,
31:15
SPEAKER_02: is the best.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: And that's really what he does.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: And Socrates becomes the person, the sort of exemplar of this.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, at the end, it's really interesting.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Rather than saying you get rid of all of your sensual desires,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: he actually says that the just man,
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Experience is a pleasure.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: I always get the number a bit off.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: Is it 720?
31:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I remember it.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: I think it's 720 times, is it, or something?
31:39
SPEAKER_02: It's 728, or is it 729?
31:40
SPEAKER_02: I think it's 728.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: He actually has a precise calculation, which seems just...
31:52
hysterically funny and ridiculous yeah it's like the rouge of
31:55
trees but the thing
31:57
is it's there's actually he's trying to show that there's a
31:59
logic to it and and so
32:02
i mean the just man actually enjoys sensual pleasures more than
32:06
the one whose life
32:07
is devoted to sensual pleasures i mean that's that's really a
32:10
remarkable thing so
32:11
all of these all of the parts find their fulfillment in the
32:16
proper order and
32:18
SPEAKER_02: everything that happens within the horizon receives justice,
32:24
SPEAKER_02: is properly affirmed in its place and so forth.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:30
We talked about that before in a sense that it's almost like
32:33
the philosophical
32:34
version of grace you'd said that you need this superseding
32:37
order to align the
32:39
SPEAKER_01: various parts to kind of stop their inner conflict in a
32:43
SPEAKER_01: but they can't do it for each other.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: It's not like one can be like, oh, this one, this one.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: It has to be something outside of the system.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: And it really,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: when I was teaching it again,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: Plato's,
32:53
SPEAKER_01: because I think he's trying to get this objective morality.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to get to a universal morality and
33:00
he really almost gives a biological account i think you could
33:03
prove this in terms
33:04
of neurobiology it was an argument i was making for the
33:06
behavior of dopamine like
33:08
it because it's finite but it's renewable so if you use it in a
33:11
way that's just
33:11
like using it up all the time like a hedonist would you're
33:14
going to be more
33:15
miserable than a person who uses it modestly because like
33:19
that's the way and like
33:20
SPEAKER_01: plato's almost spelling that out as it goes on um
33:24
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
33:24
it seems like it's like the opposite of addiction is this
33:27
connection to reality in
33:29
SPEAKER_01: some sense.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: And Christianity, I suppose it's idolatry.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, the key is the transcendence.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: And that notion is really crucial.
33:39
It's got to be a principle that precisely is outside in the
33:43
kind of radical sense of
33:45
SPEAKER_02: But the truly radical sense means it's always inside at the same time.
33:49
You know,
33:49
if it's only outside,
33:51
then it becomes relative to what's inside.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's actually not transcendent.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:56
SPEAKER_02: again,
33:57
SPEAKER_02: this sounds so weird and paradoxical,
33:59
but it really is rigorously logical that something can only be
34:05
truly transcendent
34:06
SPEAKER_02: if it's also imminent.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: This was a theme that Eric Pearl,
34:11
SPEAKER_02: for me,
34:11
SPEAKER_02: was so helpful in making clear that transcendence implies evidence.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: But the point is that it has to be something that is radically other.
34:29
Or else,
34:30
you know,
34:30
or else you end up just relativizing things in relation to each other.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: And then it becomes a kind of a polemic polemics, really.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Which, I mean, in our society, it's like the norm, basically.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it seems to be impossible to find coherence on anything.
34:46
And Alistair McIntyre makes that argument in after virtue that
34:49
it's like if you
34:51
start from different assumptions and obviously you don't have a
34:53
first assumption
34:54
SPEAKER_01: like the good.
34:56
it's actually impossible for you to reason or rationale to the
34:58
same conclusions
34:59
SPEAKER_01: because you're starting from,
35:00
SPEAKER_01: from different premises.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's exactly right.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: Um,
35:06
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
35:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
35:07
SPEAKER_01: so to go back to the cave analogy,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
35:10
SPEAKER_01: in getting out of the cave,
35:11
I'd kind of thought about that with the tripartite psyche that
35:14
he's almost
35:14
describing the stages of the cave that there's an organization
35:18
of like turning away
35:18
from the images is like overcoming the monster that finds
35:22
pleasurable desires immediately.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Um,
35:24
There's a necessary of courage to kind of go into the uncertain
35:27
and the unknown and
35:28
SPEAKER_01: start to travel out of the cave.
35:30
And then when you start to get knowledge of the forms,
35:32
you're getting wisdom like
35:33
SPEAKER_01: that Plato's virtue ethics is almost tracking this transformation,
35:39
SPEAKER_01: which is aimed at obviously the good.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there's almost steps on the way through the cave.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: I hadn't thought of that before, but that actually works nicely.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting, the final...
35:58
SPEAKER_02: The final step would then be prudence or phrenesis,
36:01
which does seem to be the virtue that he relates to this
36:05
knowledge of the good as such,
36:07
which is very different from our normal way of thinking of what
36:09
prudence is.
36:11
But that would then represent something of this sort of moment
36:18
of transcendence.
36:27
You know,
36:27
it's not like one,
36:31
you know,
36:31
achieves insight by perfecting oneself,
36:35
you know.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: It's not like a maximizing life.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: Training one's own virtues or one's own skills and kind of getting there.
36:42
There really has to be something that's genuinely other to
36:46
which one is responding.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: And even a virtue.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: in a sense are kind of like that.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Do you think there are things that you follow,
36:54
SPEAKER_01: like that their forms,
36:56
SPEAKER_01: they're not something you necessarily possess,
36:58
SPEAKER_01: but there's something ideal about them?
37:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
37:01
what was the first word that you said that they're not
37:04
something you possess or
37:06
SPEAKER_01: that you're trying to like,
37:07
SPEAKER_02: even the,
37:08
SPEAKER_02: the something I missed it.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Even the, um, even the, what was I saying?
37:14
SPEAKER_01: Um,
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure,
37:15
SPEAKER_01: but I guess what I was trying to say was that the,
37:18
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
37:18
we don't necessarily possess the virtues in a sense that you
37:20
would possess maybe
37:21
SPEAKER_01: like physical strength or something.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: You pursue them.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Like they're almost like that grace.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Like they're not something we own.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
37:30
SPEAKER_02: And,
37:31
SPEAKER_02: and,
37:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:31
SPEAKER_02: here,
37:32
SPEAKER_02: here is something too,
37:33
SPEAKER_02: I think is,
37:34
SPEAKER_02: is helpful to see because a lot of this,
37:36
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:37
SPEAKER_02: you think of the good is shining its light and so forth.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like a very mystical experience that,
37:43
SPEAKER_02: few people would have.
37:44
But this brings us back to the point that you had made about
37:50
earlier about the real world.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: And I think it does connect also to this point about virtues.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: And that is,
37:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
37:56
SPEAKER_02: in a certain sense,
37:58
SPEAKER_02: this isn't some grand mystical thing,
38:00
SPEAKER_02: but it has to do with
38:02
SPEAKER_02: What's made available to us at every moment of every day.
38:06
I mean,
38:06
there's a sense in which,
38:07
you know,
38:08
there's reality that's looking you in the face.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: And this reality is manifesting something from beyond.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: You're encountering it.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: It really is something other than yourself that you're encountering.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: And it's presenting something to you that is more than just you.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: And you can relate to that in different ways.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: You can think of it as something that you simply then relate to yourself.
38:33
You know,
38:33
this is going to satisfy my project or my interest or my
38:38
immediate desire.
38:39
Or you relate to it as something that is coming to you from
38:44
beyond yourself and
38:46
respond to it and see it as presenting a kind of goodness there
38:52
that is more than
38:53
SPEAKER_02: you are.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: And,
38:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
38:56
SPEAKER_02: you,
38:56
SPEAKER_02: you can,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: and,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: and,
38:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
38:58
SPEAKER_02: in a very simple way that just the simple,
39:00
SPEAKER_02: the,
39:00
SPEAKER_02: the,
39:01
SPEAKER_02: the immediate things,
39:03
SPEAKER_02: realities,
39:04
SPEAKER_02: natural realities,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: this is why a screen doesn't really do that.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking of the forest that you were talking about earlier,
39:11
SPEAKER_00: like that,
39:11
SPEAKER_01: that,
39:12
SPEAKER_01: that experience of getting away from us,
39:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:14
SPEAKER_01: is,
39:15
SPEAKER_01: is now 10 times more likely to encounter that goodness.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I, you know, Wendell, um,
39:24
Wendell Berry I don't know if you're familiar with him an
39:26
American sort of farmer
39:28
I've heard his name before essayist poet novelist very very
39:33
interesting man he has
39:36
this poem and I it's it's something about the beauty or the
39:41
peace of wild things
39:43
SPEAKER_02: something like that and
39:44
It's a poem where he talks about this being in a state of
39:49
distress and burdened by anxieties.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: And,
39:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
39:56
SPEAKER_02: in some moments he'll go out to a pond or,
40:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
40:01
SPEAKER_02: next to a stream and just lie down and listen.
40:04
And there's something about that that immediately creates a
40:08
sense of,
40:09
a profound sense of calm.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: And if you think about what's going on there, there are
40:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
40:15
SPEAKER_02: he's allowing himself to encounter something really genuinely given,
40:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
40:22
SPEAKER_02: something that's absolutely not just a function of human interests.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: And there's something profoundly liberating about that.
40:33
And that's a symbol,
40:34
I think,
40:34
of this journey that Plato describes in the allegory.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: And it would be similar to, you know,
40:42
SPEAKER_02: thinking of virtues not so much as skills that I possess,
40:47
SPEAKER_02: but as ideal excellences that I pursue,
40:51
have that same sort of character of moving beyond one's own
40:56
kind of restricted
40:58
SPEAKER_02: horizon into something greater.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: And that's really the crucial thing.
41:03
That seems to be the thing that our restricted horizon has
41:07
become kind of upgraded
41:09
in a sense of that it can track what you're doing and
41:13
personalize things to you and
41:14
try and hook you in more and more into these feedback loops
41:18
that ultimately feel terrible.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, recovering a sense of that transcendence.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: And there was something I want to ask you about that was coming up again,
41:26
SPEAKER_01: which is the forms themselves.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because I think
41:31
SPEAKER_01: we've lost that obviously in the kind of empiricist worldview,
41:34
SPEAKER_01: which limits our access probably to,
41:37
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:38
SPEAKER_01: how do you,
41:38
SPEAKER_01: how do we argue that the forms are really real,
41:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: that to people that don't,
41:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:44
so many people hear that and they're just like floating objects
41:47
in outer space or
41:48
SPEAKER_01: something like,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: yeah.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, that's the thing I, I, I, um, um,
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh,
41:57
SPEAKER_02: I sometimes,
41:57
SPEAKER_02: when I,
41:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
41:59
SPEAKER_02: give a sort of crash course in Platonism,
42:01
SPEAKER_02: uh,
42:02
SPEAKER_02: in,
42:02
SPEAKER_02: in my teaching,
42:03
SPEAKER_02: I'll,
42:03
SPEAKER_02: I'll use a series of examples.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: Um,
42:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:07
SPEAKER_02: the,
42:07
SPEAKER_02: the,
42:07
SPEAKER_02: the standard ones about,
42:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:09
SPEAKER_02: chairs,
42:09
SPEAKER_02: everyone's sitting in chairs and they're,
42:12
SPEAKER_02: they're,
42:12
SPEAKER_02: they're all different.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: You know,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: even if they,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: if,
42:15
SPEAKER_02: if they're all,
42:16
SPEAKER_02: they look some relative sense,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: the same,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: if these are mass produced chairs that the students are sitting in,
42:22
SPEAKER_02: um,
42:23
SPEAKER_02: There are going to be some physical differences,
42:26
SPEAKER_02: but you can also imagine armchairs and thrones and so forth.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: The point is we call them all chairs.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: We use a single word.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: We don't say that they're chair-like chairs.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: or these are chair-ish sorts of things.
42:41
We say chairs,
42:42
and we have one single word,
42:44
and we mean that same thing each time we say it.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: And what's interesting is that,
42:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
42:50
what's going on there is we're actually meaning there's an
42:54
identically one thing
42:56
SPEAKER_02: that is meant each time we recognize it.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: So what is that?
43:01
SPEAKER_02: And Plato would say, well, it's chair.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: It's chair-ness.
43:06
And the fact that we can point to these different objects and
43:09
use the same word
43:10
SPEAKER_02: means that it isn't simply in any one of them,
43:16
SPEAKER_02: but is something that is presented in each of these instances,
43:21
SPEAKER_02: but it transcends them.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: You know,
43:25
SPEAKER_02: and there you see,
43:28
you then can start to elaborate what that would mean and would
43:31
be something,
43:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:32
another example I'll do is I'll draw some circles on a board
43:35
and I'll just ask students,
43:37
SPEAKER_02: what are these?
43:38
SPEAKER_02: And they say circles, right?
43:39
SPEAKER_02: And then I say, okay, well, wait a minute.
43:41
SPEAKER_02: Are they circles?
43:42
SPEAKER_02: And, of course, you can't draw a perfect circle.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: And I said, but none of you hesitated for a second.
43:53
SPEAKER_02: What is it you were looking at when you saw these as circles?
43:56
SPEAKER_02: There's something,
43:58
SPEAKER_02: circle-ness,
43:58
SPEAKER_02: there was some ideal reality that you saw,
44:01
SPEAKER_02: in a way,
44:02
SPEAKER_02: in and through these things on the board.
44:06
SPEAKER_02: And then the question is, where is it?
44:07
SPEAKER_02: And they want to say, well, it's in our minds.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: And then you say, okay, wait, in your mind?
44:12
SPEAKER_01: Nominalism.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Or in your mind?
44:14
SPEAKER_02: Or in your mind?
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Wait a minute.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Or is it in all our minds at once?
44:18
And if it's in all our minds at once,
44:20
it means that it has to transcend our minds.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Because I think that's a different reality.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: And then you just say, okay, this is what Plato's talking about.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: But then you say the caricature then is, you know,
44:35
SPEAKER_02: These are floating up in outer space.
44:38
But then,
44:38
of course,
44:39
you just say,
44:39
wait a minute,
44:40
are they in outer space?
44:41
SPEAKER_02: No, they are nowhere.
44:44
And they are at no time because that's precisely why,
44:49
you know,
44:50
they're not physical things.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: Even floating in outer space is a physical metaphor.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: So somehow these have absolutely nothing to do with time and space.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: They're completely...
45:04
SPEAKER_02: outside.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: And when,
45:04
SPEAKER_02: when you start to see that,
45:05
SPEAKER_02: it actually,
45:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
45:06
SPEAKER_02: it's odd in,
45:07
SPEAKER_02: in one way that becomes more and more mystical sounding,
45:10
SPEAKER_02: but it becomes also more and more compelling as a,
45:15
SPEAKER_02: as an observation of something we constantly experience all the time.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: That we're constantly dealing with things outside of time and space.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's, it's very natural.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: Anytime you, you tell somebody that, you know, sit in a chair,
45:32
you're communing with the forms yeah and do you make a
45:38
distinction between four
45:39
because I thought it was like the example Plato uses in the
45:41
Republic well one of
45:42
them I suppose particularly with the critique of images is a
45:45
bed and so like the
45:47
bed maker has the ideal form of the bed makes the bed out of it
45:52
but then a person
45:52
who paints a bed creates a copy of a copy and that's the lowest
45:58
level of reality
46:00
SPEAKER_01: that would be the bottom one but
46:02
The form of it that the bed maker is using is the realest of them,
46:07
in a sense.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: It's the cause of the actual or the physical bed.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: I think that that's helpful.
46:18
And what's the relationship then between the forms and their
46:23
physical images and
46:24
SPEAKER_02: then their artistic images?
46:26
SPEAKER_02: images.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting,
46:28
SPEAKER_02: he doesn't use this language in the Republic,
46:30
SPEAKER_02: but in the Phaedo,
46:31
SPEAKER_02: he uses the language of communion and presence.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: It's very interesting.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: Koinonia and parousia,
46:39
SPEAKER_02: communion presence,
46:40
SPEAKER_02: and says that somehow beauty is present in beautiful things.
46:48
And that's why we say each of these things is beautiful,
46:51
because it's evoking something
46:53
that is the same in all of them,
46:55
but it's expressed differently in all of them.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: And then the question is,
47:00
does this mean that Plato is a dualist in the sense that he has
47:08
contempt for images
47:10
SPEAKER_02: and so forth?
47:11
SPEAKER_02: And there the answer is no.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: It's not that the images of,
47:18
and this relates to the question that we were talking about at
47:21
the very beginning,
47:22
SPEAKER_02: it's not that he gets rid of images.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: He it's images are good in their proper place.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: You know,
47:28
SPEAKER_02: and I,
47:29
SPEAKER_02: I give an example to,
47:30
SPEAKER_02: to the students that,
47:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:31
SPEAKER_02: imagine,
47:32
SPEAKER_02: um,
47:32
SPEAKER_02: the,
47:33
SPEAKER_02: uh,
47:34
SPEAKER_02: uh,
47:35
SPEAKER_02: the,
47:35
SPEAKER_02: the,
47:35
SPEAKER_02: the woman who's who,
47:37
SPEAKER_02: uh,
47:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:38
SPEAKER_02: the man that she loves is,
47:40
SPEAKER_02: is off at sea,
47:41
SPEAKER_02: off at sea,
47:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:42
and she has a photograph of him and every night she kisses the photograph,
47:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:48
SPEAKER_02: um,
47:49
SPEAKER_02: is there anything wrong with that?
47:51
SPEAKER_02: And you would say, no.
47:52
And,
47:52
you know,
47:52
is that,
47:54
is that,
47:54
is she sort of obsessed with this piece of paper?
47:57
You say,
47:58
no,
47:58
she,
47:58
she's in a way,
47:59
um,
48:00
she's kissing him in and through the photograph.
48:03
SPEAKER_02: He's, this photograph is making him present too.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: And then the problem would arrive,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: would arise if he sort of returns and she,
48:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: holds the picture next to him and says,
48:16
SPEAKER_02: okay,
48:17
SPEAKER_02: I think I like this picture.
48:18
piece of paper better it's much easier to deal with that's
48:23
where you run into the
48:24
problems and then and then what what what happens there is this
48:28
is no longer an
48:29
image of him it becomes a substitute and is that a kind of idol
48:35
yeah i mean because
48:36
we do that we do that in our heads as well like sometimes you
48:38
might have like an
48:39
image of a person you're like oh i love this image of them but
48:41
then their reality
48:42
SPEAKER_01: is kind of a pain in the ass and you're like why is this you know
48:45
But that,
48:46
you know,
48:46
if you fall in love with the image of the person you don't
48:48
really love,
48:49
SPEAKER_01: the person.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
48:51
And in a way you could say we're constantly beset by this
48:54
temptation to settle down
48:57
SPEAKER_02: into our own perceptions of things and our,
49:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:02
imaginations of things and the way we want them to be rather
49:05
than the way that they are.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: So this is something,
49:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
49:07
SPEAKER_02: in a way that the example I gave is a,
49:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:11
SPEAKER_02: super simplistic one.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: But in every interaction, you might say there's a,
49:19
SPEAKER_02: there's an image that we either focus on or see through to the reality.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: Jean-Luc Marion was interesting here.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: He makes a distinction between the idol and the icon.
49:35
SPEAKER_02: And it's really kind of a nice way of putting this point.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: The physical reality can be that.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: in and through which we perceive what transcends it,
49:45
or it can be where our gaze stops and then reflects always back
49:50
on ourselves.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's idolatrous and problematic.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you think this could be like the good internet and the bad internet?
49:59
Like the good internet could be an icon that like potentially
50:03
like a conversation
50:04
SPEAKER_01: like this,
50:04
SPEAKER_01: if we're dramatizing,
50:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
50:06
SPEAKER_01: uh,
50:07
SPEAKER_02: the ascent out of the cave or in a way we're trying to point to some,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: we're trying to,
50:12
SPEAKER_01: yeah.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:13
yeah you know jonathan peggio i'm not i don't know if you are
50:17
familiar with him but
50:17
yeah yeah no i mean he's fine jonathan yeah um he's he's really
50:21
good about this
50:21
point in saying you know for the people that because he has a
50:25
lot of people that
50:26
are inspired by him and watches programs and he's always
50:29
reminding them this isn't
50:32
enough this is if this doesn't get you to go to church you know
50:36
he says then then
50:37
SPEAKER_02: then it's failing and there's
50:39
SPEAKER_02: That's kind of what Plato is doing with the Republic in a way.
50:42
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, look, this book is not enough.
50:44
If this doesn't get you to pursue the good in reality,
50:49
burn it,
50:50
throw it away.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: It's an obstacle.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
50:57
SPEAKER_02: I think it's... What is the proper way to keep the internet in its place?
51:06
SPEAKER_02: That is going to be an ongoing...
51:11
SPEAKER_02: And we are at the beginning of the great epidemic.
51:16
And this is going to be something that's going to take
51:19
generations of reflection.
51:21
And this is a kind of a cultural challenge I think the world
51:27
has rarely seen.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think Plato's Republic has a lot to offer on us as well,
51:35
SPEAKER_01: to teach us on specifically this problem,
51:37
because we've kind of invented a world and now there's
51:40
competition of businesses
51:42
SPEAKER_01: have hijacked it,
51:43
SPEAKER_01: but then there's people going,
51:44
SPEAKER_01: the government should run it.
51:45
And you're like,
51:45
well,
51:45
there's other problems with the government running it.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
51:48
SPEAKER_01: well,
51:48
SPEAKER_01: who do you,
51:49
do you try and get a philosopher king that becomes the arbiter
51:51
of the internet and
51:53
SPEAKER_01: people want an AI one that's going to facilitate it?
51:55
SPEAKER_01: So like, you know,
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Well,
51:58
SPEAKER_02: I think the thing is,
51:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:00
SPEAKER_02: there's no,
52:01
SPEAKER_02: to my mind,
52:02
SPEAKER_02: no obvious answer to the challenge yet.
52:05
SPEAKER_02: But at least one helpful thing is,
52:08
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:09
SPEAKER_02: consider the difference between,
52:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:13
SPEAKER_02: this is the platonic judgment about writing.
52:19
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't reject writing,
52:20
but he says it's a play thing that's best appreciated as a
52:26
reminder for those who know.
52:30
SPEAKER_02: And you think about the internet,
52:32
SPEAKER_02: think about the relationships you have that,
52:37
SPEAKER_02: let's say,
52:37
with your family or friends that you communicate with through
52:42
the internet.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: through social media there,
52:45
that it's very different from maybe relationships that have
52:48
been entirely mediated
52:52
SPEAKER_02: from start to finish.
52:55
SPEAKER_02: You know,
52:55
SPEAKER_02: when,
52:56
SPEAKER_02: when,
52:56
SPEAKER_02: when,
52:56
when the internet is sort of secondary and derivative of a
53:00
relationship that has a
53:02
SPEAKER_02: reality that precedes it,
53:04
SPEAKER_02: there's,
53:04
there's a sense in which it's always going to have a kind of an
53:07
anchor that,
53:07
SPEAKER_02: that allows it to be kept in its place.
53:12
And when there is no real anchor like that,
53:14
that's where real dangers start to emerge,
53:17
I think.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think COVID definitely did that in a sense of that.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: The digital overlapped the physical.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: That was really when I got interested in it,
53:26
SPEAKER_01: to be honest,
53:26
SPEAKER_01: was because I started to see,
53:28
SPEAKER_01: seeing one reality through social media of the friends and people I know.
53:33
SPEAKER_01: And then the other one that I knew was actually going on.
53:35
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is like a funhouse mirror of absurd, like...
53:40
this is crazy like this is like if i was to take on face value
53:43
what people are
53:44
posting and saying i think everybody had lost their minds like
53:47
they'd all like but
53:49
then i was talking to people and you'd meet meet with people
53:51
and it was perfectly
53:52
normal and you're like yeah no there's some disconnection
53:55
between these things here
53:56
isn't it amazing you know just like the wendell berry
53:59
experience you know just just
54:01
SPEAKER_02: a good solid encounter with the real
54:05
And so many of these anxieties and these confusions and these complexities,
54:10
SPEAKER_02: they just melt away like,
54:12
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:13
SPEAKER_02: like magic.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's really something a good.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: And,
54:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
54:18
SPEAKER_02: you and I before I think it was before you started recording,
54:21
SPEAKER_02: we're chatting about like Iris Murdoch,
54:23
SPEAKER_02: who.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: She evokes the experience of hearing a songbird in the beauty,
54:29
SPEAKER_02: catching a glimpse of something real and beautiful,
54:34
how that can just immediately free you and relieve your
54:40
conscience and kind of open
54:43
SPEAKER_02: you up.
54:45
To me,
54:46
that itself is a sign of the priority of reality that we're
54:51
meant for.
54:53
what's real in it that that just a glimpse of it can be so
54:58
immediately refreshing
55:01
that's a good word for it you know you feel and that some
55:03
people don't don't get
55:04
that i mean it's such an interesting like why would you be so
55:08
because like i
55:09
totally agree with you i think that that's the fundamental
55:11
reality is the good the
55:12
true and the beautiful and yet there's so much cynicism so much
55:16
nihilism so much
55:17
SPEAKER_01: like
55:18
essentially a kind of belief that reality even like is an evil
55:22
kind of thing,
55:22
SPEAKER_01: or like that it has to be this horrible,
55:25
SPEAKER_01: difficult,
55:26
SPEAKER_01: like whatever is the worst thing is the most real in a sense.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: And you're like,
55:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:30
SPEAKER_01: it's such a strange,
55:32
SPEAKER_01: uh,
55:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
55:33
SPEAKER_01: trap or something that you can become so disconnected from.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's the thing.
55:38
I think if you,
55:39
if this becomes kind of the,
55:41
the,
55:41
the,
55:41
the screen in a way becomes habitual,
55:44
uh,
55:45
SPEAKER_02: Then,
55:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:46
it does suddenly you're you're able to entertain the strangest
55:50
ideas like like,
55:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:53
SPEAKER_02: all of existence might just be a video game that that were,
55:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
55:58
that those kinds of things are just how in the world could you
56:01
even think of that
56:03
as a possibility unless you were so alienated from yourself
56:08
already that that you
56:10
SPEAKER_02: can't really.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: And,
56:12
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:12
SPEAKER_02: that's the thing,
56:12
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:13
SPEAKER_02: we are going to,
56:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:16
SPEAKER_02: the whole COVID crisis,
56:19
SPEAKER_02: there were people that were entering in,
56:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:22
SPEAKER_02: young people entering into their most important developmental stages.
56:27
SPEAKER_02: right at that moment where they were no longer,
56:30
SPEAKER_02: uh,
56:30
SPEAKER_02: allowed to look at the face of human beings.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: Um,
56:35
SPEAKER_02: and you know,
56:35
SPEAKER_02: this,
56:36
SPEAKER_02: this we're,
56:36
we're going to be discovering in a decade or so how devastating
56:42
all that was.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, yeah, there's a, yeah, and it really is.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a hard thing,
56:49
SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
56:50
SPEAKER_01: cause I'm doing like internet ethics or whatever you call it,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: but like it really just pales in the face of,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: this,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: uh,
56:57
civilization level transformation and then also the lack of
57:00
kind of institutions
57:02
behind it that would have been normal like so it kind of
57:05
connects to the meaning
57:06
crisis and people leaving behind you know structures of family
57:09
and structures of
57:10
religion and structures of any normal kind of things that yeah
57:14
um community and get
57:16
hoovered up very easily by this persuasive machine yeah that's
57:21
right that's right
57:23
SPEAKER_02: yeah and it's it's uh it's
57:25
SPEAKER_02: it's pretty compelling,
57:26
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:27
SPEAKER_02: how,
57:27
SPEAKER_02: how,
57:28
SPEAKER_02: how does,
57:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:32
SPEAKER_02: as my wife will often say,
57:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:35
SPEAKER_02: you think about the quiet attraction of a natural landscape.
57:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how can that compete with the demand of,
57:47
For your attention that the screen with its noise and and
57:52
bright lights and kind of,
57:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:55
SPEAKER_02: just movement,
57:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:58
SPEAKER_02: it just seems like it just gets overwhelmed.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: Reality can get so easily overwhelmed.
58:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:05
And I think the good news is in the long run that it probably
58:07
doesn't work.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
58:08
SPEAKER_01: Like it is,
58:09
it is a kind of drugification of reality and people will
58:13
probably have to get sober
58:14
SPEAKER_01: at some point and stop,
58:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
58:16
SPEAKER_01: inhaling information like a stimulant.
58:19
SPEAKER_01: Um,
58:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
58:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
58:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
58:21
SPEAKER_02: we haven't really touched on this,
58:22
SPEAKER_02: but,
58:23
SPEAKER_02: you know,
58:24
SPEAKER_02: don't want to open up a whole new subject at the end here.
58:28
SPEAKER_02: But I get so worried about chat, GPT, and artificial intelligence.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: You know,
58:36
SPEAKER_02: my kids,
58:37
SPEAKER_02: I have two kids in high school now,
58:39
SPEAKER_02: and one of them...
58:41
SPEAKER_02: And,
58:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
58:42
SPEAKER_02: we have,
58:43
SPEAKER_02: they say,
58:44
SPEAKER_02: you know,
58:45
SPEAKER_02: far too extreme restrictions on their skin use.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, we're...
58:51
We keep telling them that they'll thank us for it in the long run,
58:55
but we're not absolutists.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: They don't have smartphones.
59:03
SPEAKER_02: I actually don't.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: My family, we don't have smartphones.
59:06
SPEAKER_02: It's a genius move, to be honest, based on all my research anyway.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
59:10
SPEAKER_02: no,
59:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
59:11
SPEAKER_02: it comes with certain disadvantages,
59:14
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
59:14
SPEAKER_02: but we're sticking to it as far as we can.
59:18
SPEAKER_02: But anyway,
59:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
59:20
SPEAKER_02: the temptation to use ChatGPT to write,
59:24
SPEAKER_02: you know,
59:24
SPEAKER_02: you have to write a report on some artist,
59:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
59:28
SPEAKER_02: it's almost overwhelming.
59:30
And my son said,
59:33
well,
59:34
what about just having a draft and then I can put it in my own words?
59:38
SPEAKER_02: And,
59:38
SPEAKER_02: you know,
59:38
SPEAKER_02: I just say,
59:39
SPEAKER_02: look,
59:39
you have no idea how easily that would become habitual in a way
59:45
that would deprive you.
59:46
SPEAKER_02: You would never really learn how to think something through and write.
59:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like having a machine lift weights for you.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: What would be the point?
59:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
59:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what would be the point?
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: It would be a total waste of time.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: You need to do it.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a like...
1:00:07
SPEAKER_01: I've been involved in a bunch of projects in the university in,
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: with generative AI and academic integrity.
1:00:13
And we're doing those because the university hasn't released
1:00:16
any like protocol or like,
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: say you can't do it or,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:19
SPEAKER_01: there's this real,
1:00:20
hands-off approach and then there's some people are like oh we
1:00:22
need to just get
1:00:23
them using it and integrate us and you know it's going to be
1:00:26
conscious and super
1:00:26
intelligent and we'll all be using it and you're like you know
1:00:29
are we in a like
1:00:30
technopoly where it's just like whatever comes along just has
1:00:33
to become integrated
1:00:34
into things it's like this is antithetical to education like he
1:00:38
can't you know yeah
1:00:40
SPEAKER_00: can't we ask
1:00:43
SPEAKER_02: Is this good for us?
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: And are we free to say no if it isn't?
1:00:47
And,
1:00:47
you know,
1:00:47
those kinds of things just don't seem to be on the horizon.
1:00:51
But that in itself is just such an evidence,
1:00:57
just a powerful piece of evidence for the problem.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Which is the underlying problem I think we've been talking about,
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: which is this lack of a foothold in a solid,
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:09
actual state of ground where you can make those judgments of
1:01:12
good and bad and right
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: and wrong and,
1:01:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: actually kind of deal with them.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise,
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: we're just,
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: if I were being manipulated by one technology or another technology,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: like...
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: and unless you have that people,
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: you're never going to be,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: in fact,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: free,
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: ever.
1:01:32
That's a...
1:01:33
Don't be too much of a downer ending,
1:01:35
but I suppose the positive side is that
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: it is accessible and it is there.
1:01:39
And yeah,
1:01:41
I've been profoundly transformed by my study of Plato,
1:01:43
I think in that,
1:01:44
in that sense.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: And as I was talking about,
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: obviously I'm getting baptized and now going to mass and exploring,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: Catholicism.
1:01:51
And that has been such a source of beauty and joy and
1:01:54
connecting to people.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: And like,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:57
hopefully that's emblematic of something other young people
1:02:02
will start to look for because,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: it just, the digital world becomes so toxic.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_02: And that's a,
1:02:08
SPEAKER_02: that's a,
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: and that,
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: that is something that is not measured by what's going on,
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: in the immediate,
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: uh,
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: just Twitter landscape,
1:02:20
SPEAKER_02: as they say,
1:02:21
SPEAKER_02: even though Twitter,
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: doesn't exist anymore.
1:02:24
You know,
1:02:24
it's,
1:02:24
it,
1:02:25
it really is a,
1:02:26
it's a,
1:02:26
it's a foothold in what transcends all of this.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's, that's what we all really want actually.
1:02:36
yeah that's what is it our hearts are restless till they rest
1:02:39
and you Augustine um
1:02:42
our hearts are restless on the internet anyway hopefully it
1:02:44
could be an icon maybe
1:02:46
but yeah at best that gives something to aim for I think even
1:02:48
for people like me
1:02:49
who are creating things online and putting stuff up like we
1:02:52
should be aiming for
1:02:53
icon not idol yeah that's nice it's a pretty good mantra um
1:02:58
yeah so thank you so
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: much David
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it too.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_02: It's nice to see you again and look forward to the next one.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: In the meantime, all the best to you.