Author: Matthew David Segall
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Whitehead Centennial Conference at Harvard on September 27th
Sign up to attend for free either online or in-person at Harvard’s Emerson Hall (where Whitehead taught his first philosophy course a century ago): https://ctr4process.org/conference/whitehead-harvard-2024/
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C. S. Peirce’s “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (1908)
In his 1908 essay, “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God,” Charles Sanders Peirce offers a “humble hypothesis” meant to be accessible to the expert logician and clodhopper alike. God is identified as the ens necessarium, or the necessary being. This necessary being, according to Peirce, is the creator of all three (or at least…
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Quantum Physics and Process Metaphysics (dialogue with Flavio Lanfanconi)
A transcript of our conversation: Dr. Flavio Lanfranconi: Good to see you. Great. I was just trying to keep up with everything you’ve posted recently. It’s difficult, but… Matt Segall: Sorry about that. Dr. Flavio Lanfranconi: Never mind, it’s great. I was just finishing your last conversation with… Matt Segall: Roman. Dr. Flavio Lanfranconi: Roman. Yep, exactly. I’m bad with…
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Discussing C. S. Peirce’s “A Guess at the Riddle” with Tim Jackson
A rough transcript: Matt Segall: Hey, Tim? One sec. Just getting my earmuffs on here. Timothy Jackson: Oh, good! Matt Segall: There we go! Hey! How’s it going? Timothy Jackson: Yeah, not too bad, man. How are you? Matt Segall: Doing well. Good morning. Timothy Jackson: Evening to you. Matt Segall: Yeah. Super excited to talk about Peirce. Haven’t read Peirce for…
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C. S. Peirce’s Guess at the Riddle
Later today, Timothy Jackson and I will meet to discuss Charles Sanders Peirce’s essay “A Guess at the Riddle” (1888; pages cited below from The Essential Peirce, Vol 1). I’ll update this post with the video once I’ve uploaded it. The essay lays out Peirce’s profound philosophical insight into the real idea of the triad, which he deploys (among…
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Rudolf Steiner and the Dream of External Matter: Toward a Physiosophy of the Senses
Over the weekend, I gave a talk at the Mysteries of Technology Conference: “Etheric Imagination as Participatory Knowing“ Unfortunately, I had to skip a few slides due to time constraints, so I wanted to share those ideas here. Below is something of an addendum to that talk, so a lot of what follows will make…
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Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Organism
An abridged transcript of my talk is below. For a more in depth look at social threefolding, you can also check out my article “The Urgency of Social Threefolding in a World Still At War With Itself” (2023). I am grateful for the invitation to share a bit about the threefold social organism, or social threefolding…
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Etheric Imagination as Participatory Knowing: A Process-Relational Reading of Rudolf Steiner’s “Light Course”
Transcript: It’s really lovely to be here this morning, though it’s quite early for me. I’ve been enjoying the last three days of the Mysteries of Technology conference very much, and I’m very grateful to have been invited. I think what MysTech is doing is important, not only for the wider world to see the ways in…
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The Relevance of Whitehead’s Process Theology to Natural Science
Below is a rough transcript of a Cobb Institute class lecture I gave earlier today. I’m going to speak a little bit about the relevance, as I see it, of process theology to natural science. Whitehead was kept in print, I would say, for the better part of the second half of the 20th century…
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The Physics and Metaphysics of Evolutionary Learning
Below is the video and a transcript of a conversation with Brendan Graham Dempsey following my review of his essay “A Universal Learning Process.” You can listen to the audio on my Substack. BRENDAN Hey, everyone. Today, I’m joined again by Matt Segall. Matt’s an associate professor at California Institute of Integral Studies in the…
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Evolution as a Universal Learning Process
“Meaning arises out of the most fundamental dynamics of the physical world: energy and information…[I]t is precisely via the thermodynamic forces driving cosmic evolution as a whole that meaning evolves into more complex biological and social registers such as we experience as conscious agents…[M]eaning is a particular kind of information—namely, information linking entities with their…
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Becoming the World-Body
You are not your brain, and you’re not just your body either, at least not if you think of your body as just what’s encased within the skin. To really understand what’s going on inside your body, you would need to understand its history, which is as old as the universe. Understanding the body means…
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Re-Thinking Economics and the Meaning of Value with Tim Adalin and O. G. Rose
It was a genuine joy to be in dialogue with Daniel and Tim yesterday. I want to reflect on some of what I shared during our discussion. The first thing I think, to frame my remarks, would be to say that over the last couple decades of my adult life, in thinking about economics and…
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Exploring the Physics of the World-Soul (dialogue with Sam Al-Qattan)
Below is a rough transcript of my dialogue with Sam. Sam: Do you mind just giving a definition? What is mechanistic materialism? Matt: Mechanistic philosophy emerges in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe and it’s really a rather sharp divergence from the sort of worldview that had characterized human societies for thousands of…
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Discussing “The Blind Spot” with Gregg Henriques
Here is a rough transcript of some of my comments to Gregg: I think this book speaks to both of us for obvious reasons. The work you’ve been engaged in with your UTOK system to bring together the humanities and the natural sciences in a more comprehensive, systematic perspective, and any of the dialogues you’ve…
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Evolution as Cosmic Cognition (dialogue with Richard Watson)
Matt Segall: Well, where do I want to begin? Richard, I know that you do a lot of work on evolutionary theory and evolution as a learning process or a cognitive process. While you have a lot of respect, if that’s the way I can put it, for Darwin’s theory of natural selection, it seems not…
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Paradigm Shifts, Human Experience, Panpsychism, and Psychedelics (dialoguing with Jack Roycroft-Sherry)
Jack and I discussed a number of topics, beginning with how science and philosophy might be demarcated. I suggest that science, born from natural philosophy, relies on metaphysical presuppositions and requires philosophical foundations to justify its knowledge claims. Philosophy seeks the general and universal, while science specializes in isolated regions of inquiry. Both are valuable…
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Between Phenomenology, Science, and Process Ontology (dialogue with James Schofield)
In this video, James Schofield and I have detailed discussion about process philosophy, with a focus on our respective backgrounds, interests, and scholarly work. James begins by introducing his academic journey, highlighting his studies in anthropology, consciousness, and philosophy, which led to his book on Errol Harris. He shares his dissatisfaction with traditional anthropology and psychology, which propelled…
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Metaphysics, Science, and Waking Up (dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and Matt delved into Whitehead’s metaphysics, exploring its intersections with modern science and spiritual experience. Roman began by asking Matt about the distinction between Whitehead’s eternal objects and Plato’s eternal forms. Matt explained that although Whitehead was influenced by Plato, the two concepts are different. Plato saw the physical world as an imperfect imitation…
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Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: A dialogue with Evan Sola, PsyD and Casey Paleos, MD
A clinical psychologist and psychiatrist involved in MAPS’ phase 3 MDMA trials weigh in on the ethical and ontological challenges of psychedelic psychotherapy. Here is a rough transcript of this conversation. Evan and Casey both have chapters in a soon to be published American Psychological Association textbook on psychedelic therapy, which formed the basis of…
Footnotes2Plato 