The episode description I provided does little justice to the depth and breadth of today’s discussion. We get into Miyazaki, mushrooms, Muslim views on abortion, monotheism’s role in shaping modernity, the absurdity of miracles, matter(ialism) over mind and yes, even more than just that!
My guest, David Skrbina, is perhaps best known for his role in editing and collaborating on The Unabomber’s anti-technology writing.
I have spoken to Professor Skbrina about the metaphysics of technology before:
I found his book fascinating. You should read his book. I link it in the previous episode. These are powerful ideas that combat the core assumptions and justifications of and for modernity.
Todays discussion forked at an interesting junction. In regards to panpsychism and polytheism, I pointed out the validity of the experiential approach of primitive cultures and our pre-modern ancestors who used altered states to make sense of the world. However, what Professor Skrbina has done is construct a Western, rational and possibly empirical argument for panpsychism. He demonstrates that the modern nominalist mindset is irrational using logic.
A neat bonus at the end was our unexpected agreement about the necessity of the existence of a “group mind” shared by one ethnic group. I would call such a phenomenon the “Ethnic Oversoul”.
I hope to someday finish The Metaphysics of Nationalism.
To my knowledge, no one has ever written such a text.
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