Author: Matthew David Segall
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Transcendent Love and the Possibility of Revolutionary Political Change
I’ll be joining Cadell Last on Philosophy Portal next week to discuss the relationship between politics and love. At least as I relate to the topic, this is fundamentally a question of political theology. I’ve explored this terrain frequently over the years (eg, this process theological response to Carl Schmitt). In this post, I’ve dug up some old exchanges with Levi…
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Whitehead’s Panprehensionism: A Feeling For Reality (Dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Video timestamps are available on YouTube. Below is Claude 3 Opus’ summary of the transcript (with a few edits by me): In this detailed conversation, Matt, a philosopher, and Tim, a biologist, delve into various philosophical topics related to perception, consciousness, and the nature of reality, with a particular focus on the ideas of Alfred…
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The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence
On Wednesday evening (March 13) at Grace Cathedral, was in dialogue with the Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California; Brian Behlendorf, CTO of Open Wallet Foundation; and Zann Gill, author, former research scientist on collaborative intelligence at NASA, and a founder of Generative AI Lab & Library in an effort to explore the future impact…
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Descendental Philosophy and the Confrontation with Nihilism (dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman has been reading my book Crossing the Threshold. In this dialogue, we explore Whitehead’s mathematical imagination, theory of perception, and attempt to overcome the nihilism that Nietzsche marked out as a pathological transition stage. Watch on YouTube for timestamps. ChatGPT summary: 📘 Perception and Reality: Perception is not merely passive reception through the senses but…
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Plato and Platonism: Dividing the Line and Completing the Cirlce
To listen to the live recording from which this transcript was produced, visit: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OwxWYrEnznGQ?s=20 I’m driving home from a talk that AE Robbert just gave at The Alembic in Berkeley. Adam’s a good friend of mine, and he’s finishing up a dissertation on the role of askēsisor training/exercise/practice in philosophy. He’s reading a lot of Pierre Hadot, and thinking about…
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Fantasy, Science, and Beauty in an Evolving Universe (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim and I continued our dialogue about the Free Energy Principle and Whitehead’s cosmology. I began by recounting a short video of Karl Friston saying all human perception is fantasy. From there we discussed FEP’s instrumentalism, the Peirce-James pragmatist difference, and explored the implications of evolution as a general principle extending beyond just biology. We also…
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Agency and Perception in Whitehead and the Free Energy Principle (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim and I continue to explore how Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism might intersect with contemporary scientific theories, especially the Free Energy Principle (FEP). The FEP suggests that organisms strive to minimize the surprise of sensory inputs by adjusting their internal models of the world, which resonates in some ways with Whitehead’s account of perception as…
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Processing Process Ontology (dialogue with Bonnitta Roy and Gregg Henriques)
Bonnie, Gregg, and I met to discuss the interplay between process philosophy and UTOK. We begin by unpacking the status of metaphysics vis à vis science in order to head off some common misconceptions. I make the point that physics has been without a widely accepted metaphysical underpinning since the quantum and relativistic revolutions of the early 20th century. Physics…
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Whitehead and the Free Energy Principle: The Physics and Metaphysics of Information (dialogue with Tim Jackson)
Tim Jackson and I met for another thought jam to explore the interplay between contemporary physics, information theory, biology, and Whitehead’s process philosophy. We got into the ontology of abstraction and in the end found ourselves ruminating on the nature of reality in an increasingly technologically mediated world. Our conversation unveiled a shared concern: as…
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The Metaphysics of Psychedelics (thoughts on Chris Letheby’s new article)
Here is a fantastic new publication on psychedelics by Chris Letheby: “Psychedelics: Recent Philosophical Discussions.”It will appear in T. Schramme and M. Walker (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine (Springer, forthcoming). The whole paper is worth a close read, as it provides a digestible summary of the major philosophical questions that have arisen during the last couple…
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Artificial Intelligence, Moral Imagination, and Spiritual Evolution (dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and I had another wide-ranging dialogue. Topics traversed include:
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Dying to be Born (Dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and I sat down for another dialogue. Topics discussed this time include: anatman, evil, relevant novelty, death, the ontological argument for the existence of God and its discontents, and other such matters.
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Renewing Philosophy (Dialogue with Tim Adalin)
Tim Adalin hosted me on his Voicecraft podcast to discuss process philosophy and its applications. The conversation opened with an exploration of the relationship between philosophy, the elite, and democracy (particularly its susceptibility to tyranny and the importance of wise leadership over populism). I emphasized the role of education in a democratic society, proposing a culture…
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‘The Progress of Knowledge Has Led to a Regression of Thought’ By Edgar Morin
Edgar Morin: The Progress of Knowledge Has Led to a Regression of Thought The multiplication of wars, global warming, the rise of authoritarian regimes: the world is rushing towards disaster, but we must resist hatred, argues the sociologist and philosopher in a column for Le Monde. Originally published on January 22, 2024. ChatGPT translation with corrections from Sean Kelly.…
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Space, Time, and Religion in the Making (dialogue with Roman Campolo)
Roman and I had another dialogue session to discuss Alfred North Whitehead’s book Religion in the Making (1926). This book lays out Whitehead’s understanding of the evolution of religious consciousness through the phases of emotion, ritual, belief, and rationalization. We touched on the significance of play behavior in animals and human beings, the transition from…
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God and Nature in Schelling and Whitehead (Dialogue with Rahul Sam)
I had a great time speaking with Rahul over the weekend. He’d been reading my book on Schelling and Whitehead, so we mostly discussed the philosophy of nature and process theology. I began by discussing death and human destiny in the long term, emphasizing the existential quandary that humans face as animals aware of our…
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The Art and Science of Improvisation: Dialogue with Merlin Sheldrake and Tim Jackson
I recently had a fascinating conversation with mycologist Merlin Sheldrake and evolutionary toxinologist Tim Jackson. Our discussion revolved around the themes of improvisation, the nature of life, and the interplay between order and chaos in both biology and philosophy. Merlin shared his insights on improvisation in the context of jazz music, which led us to…
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Human Freedom and the Future of Spirituality (Dialoguing with Roman Campolo)
Roman is a songwriter based out of Los Angeles with credits for K-Pop band BTS and legacy artists like Elton John and Stevie Wonder. The first 15 minutes of this didn’t record because of a technical glitch, but we felt the rest was worth sharing. We explore questions like: Where does spirituality fit into (post)modern…
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Conference Update – Metaphysics and the Matter With Things: Thinking With Iain McGilchrist
Andrew Davis and I sat down with Iain McGilchrist to discuss our upcoming conference at CIIS in San Francisco, March 29-31. In-person tickets have already sold out, but online registration is still open. Learn more and register to attend the conference online at the Center for Process Studies webpage. Among other topics, we discuss Iain’s…
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The Process of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Process
Jim Rutt has invited me onto his podcast to discuss the meaning and importance of metaphysics (a.k.a., speculative philosophy). That conversation won’t happen for a couple months, so for now I’ll offer a few preliminary thoughts in response to his post above.I agree with him, of course, that metaphysics is unavoidable. But it needn’t be…
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Whitehead, God, & Value: Dialogue with Darren Iammarino and Andrew Davis
Following my first conversation with Darren, Andrew joined us to continue the dialogue about some of the technical aspects of Whitehead’s theology. Above is a clip of my speculation about how Whitehead’s God may become personal. You can watch the whole conversation by clicking on the “Watch full video” button on the bottom of the…
Footnotes2Plato 