Category: reason
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Christianity Beyond Itself (Dialogue with Jacob Kishere)
Transcript by ChatGPT: Host (Jacob Kishere): All right, welcome to Sense Space. Really, really happy to be joined today by Matthew Segall. Matthew has been connecting with a number of my friends and sister projects in the Lial web, like Cadell Last’s Philosophy Portal, Tim Adalin’s Voicecraft, John Vervaeke, and Brandon Graham Dempsey. He’s really shown up for…
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Reflections on the Whitehead Centennial at Emerson Hall
My trip to Harvard gave me occasion to reflect not only on Whitehead’s legacy, but on his resonances with Emerson and their shared vision of philosophical education. It was raining Thursday afternoon when I arrived in Cambridge. My room at The Friendly Inn was a few blocks from Harvard Yard, and with the rain slowed…
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“Making Sense in Common: A Reading of Whitehead in Times of Collapse” By Isabelle Stengers
Isabelle Stengers’ recent book Making Sense in Common: A Reading of Whitehead in Times of Collapse provides a thorough exploration of the relevance of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, particularly in navigating the “post-truth” era and the broader planetary emergency. Stengers focuses on how Whitehead’s ideas can help reconstitute a form of common sense in a world where…
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Whitehead on Logical and Aesthetic Order
A few weeks ago, Tim Jackson and I discuss M. Beatrice Fazi’s book Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics (2018), focusing in particular on her interpretations of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead. You can listen to that conversation here: Deleuze, Whitehead, and the Computational Aesthetics of M. Beatrice Fazi About an hour and…
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Notes on Carl Jung’s Problem of the Fourth (with help from Rudolf Steiner)
In part five of his essay “A Psychological Approach to the Trinity,” titled “The Problem of the Fourth,” Carl Gustav Jung turns to Christian, Gnostic, and Hermetic religious symbolism for clues about the collective psychological development of Western humanity. His aim is not to offer metaphysical disambiguations of theological dogmas but to illuminate the path toward…
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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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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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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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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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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…
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Toward a Goethean Physics: Reading Steiner’s “Light Course” (GA 320) through Whitehead’s Organic Realism
Below are some excerpts and more or less stream of consciousness reflections upon reading the student notes from Rudolf Steiner’s so-called “Light Course” (GA 320; Dec 1919-Jan 1920). The number headings correspond to each of his lectures. These notes are helping me prepare for a presentation next month at MysTech’s “Mysteries of Light” conference. 1. Rudolf Steiner spent…
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Discussing “The Blind Spot” (2024) with Timothy Jackson
Tim joined me to discuss Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson’s new book. Below are some timestamps of what we covered in this long conversation: 0:10 The contemporary urban life-world 10:36 In defense of “direct experience” 19:26 Life is a surprise to physics? 35:45 Real time vs. Clock time 42:13 Organization precedes Evolution? 1:04:27 Organicism includes mechanism;…
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More Reflections on “The Blind Spot”: Life, Cognition, and Consciousness
These are rough notes that capture some of my ongoing reflections after re-reading the core chapters of The Blind Spot. You can read my original review here: Blind Spot Review. I composed these notes in preparation for a dialogue tomorrow with biologist Timothy Jackson. Stay tuned for that! Chapter 6, titled “Life,” begins with the authors’ reflection…
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What is Metamodern Christianity?
Yesterday, I listened to this wonderful dialogue between Brendan Graham Dempsey and John Vervaeke: They discuss Brendan’s proposal of a “metamodern” Christianity and explore the potential to reclaim faith in Christ in a contemporary, intellectually responsible way. The conversation revolved around the evolution of human understanding and relationship with what, following Jung, we can call “the…
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Review of “The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience”
Review of The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience (MIT Press, 2024) by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson By Matthew David Segall In The Blind Spot, Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson offer an urgent philosophical intervention into humanity’s all but doomed technoscientific civilizational project. The authors argue cogently that our contemporary scientific culture has steered…
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Reading Jung’s ‘Answer to Job’
In my dialogue with Tim Jackson a few days ago, we began exploring perhaps Jung’s most important book, Answer to Job. We’ll be meeting again tomorrow to record a part 2. In the meantime, below are some of my preliminary reflections on the second half of the text. … Jung explores the psychospiritual implications of the biblical…
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