TrueLife - Spotlight on Alfred North Whitehead #1: Process, Reality & the Flow of Consciousness

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Alfred North Whitehead redefined how we understand reality, not as static objects, but as dynamic processes constantly in flux. In this episode, George Monty dives into Whitehead’s philosophy of process, examining how events, experiences, and relationships form the evolving tapestry of consciousness and existence.In this episode:The core principles of Whitehead’s process philosophyUnderstanding reality as dynamic, relational, and interconnectedHow consciousness emerges from processes, not particlesImplications for society, technology, and human understandingWhy Whitehead’s ideas resonate in a world of rapid changeTranscript:https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/56427257Speaker 0 (0s): You went out, Speaker 1 (17s): They haven't talked to you for awhile. You're doing well. You could get a haircut. It looks good. I like it. What else was going on having a good day? Good evening. You enjoying a glass of red wine in a beautiful sunset. Talking about your family while you're doing something with you to guard as the thoughts that have attempted enter your conscious time for one, having a great day. Thanks for asking for things. We're thinking about the topic of drinking. I have been reading a book called The Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead do you ever get a chance to pick up anything by Alfred North Whitehead I would highly suggest you do it. And that is what this podcast is going to be about. It's important to note that the majority of this book takes place from 1840, tonight at 40, it goes into it a little bit of history in, and it gets into mr. Alfred, North Whitehead slides. We'll be going through some of his ideas, some of his thoughts and mind you, this is a book, not particularly about anything in particular. It is a sad day. She was a Dialogues at, he had with a lot of different reporters. And so that any further waiting on your part, let's dig in here. I'm just going to go from time to time. Some things that I've highlighted to get my thoughts of course allow when you talk about it, what it means to be nice to have made friends, do you have a domesticated one? So we have no black looks or angry words for our neighbors. It's a few enjoys himself on his own way to the whole earth subculture, a famous man, and their story is not a grave and only on stone over their native earth, butterflies on far away without a visible symbol woven into the stuff of other men's lives, pretty feet, right? So we're just going to go through and check out a few more quotes and we get to some that kind of jump in and tell you what I had to think about the American newspapers give a totally wrong impression for the 10 month. One comes to read their small man. He finds that they are written by very sensible pieces and in their space a lot, they are much more fair to political opponents than Speaker 2 (3m 36s): English one. Speaker 1 (3m 39s): Clearly this was written on the creative art. They ran out well, not very imagine the Americans, students that are less well-informed of more eager to learn English are less eager, Speaker 2 (4m 10s): Have a more informed. The American boy knows less about what interests him more. The English boy knows more about what seems to interest him less. Interesting. I always find it fascinating to learn about different cultures and not just by reading a book, but hearing about the perspective Speaker 1 (4m 42s): I have other culture for people's point of view. I think the English vs the American culture as fascinating to hear and learn about, especially from a gentleman like Alfred North Whitehead who was prior to coming to America, I would say a part of not the aristocracy, but higher middle class. If you get an idea of the gentleman, what it was like when he moved over here. So it's a fascinating book. If you guys get an opportunity, I'm going to try to stoke your curiosity by getting into some other stuff that you talked about here. All right. Ages of upheaval, favorable to creation. I fancy they are, if not to prolong to violent, I think that out of great chaos Can come great creation. And in fact, only out of chaos can come without chaos without the tearing down for the great eight. Is it a, how would you describe, like if you think about things right now, you could make the case that chaos is moving in on our society. Thunder storm clouds gathering, getting ready to fall down on, but we need that. You have to wonder sometimes, you know, as chaotic as it is right now, that can be done except to face the chaos and while its easy to lay blame for saved by it and whatever you want to throw out there it's seems to me that is unavoidable and that there is, there is no solution. There's just these periods of violent upheaval where we as a species needs to not only face, but become the catalyst on that. We must destroy some of the old ideas so that we could have a new one could argue that things were so well for so long to maintain that I was thinking of a good way to look at our environment right now. Let me give you an example. I was out of my garden and I didn't have a big garden that I like. It was really beautiful. And I had these 14 years in there. If anyone has gardenias or has ever sold, the idea is just a lovely smell, I guess, like to explain it to me. However, let me imagine a little bit of salt. Imagine that the next week Speaker 3 (8m 18s): And Roma have a warm vanilla and that's kind of like how the Gardenia smell And you could begin to smell the Gardenia as it begins to bloom in the life cycle of it is maybe a week. And so you'll see the bud and then it opens up Whoo Speaker 1 (8m 38s): Beautiful flowers, Speaker 3 (8m 41s): A white flower looks like a pure white wedding dress Speaker 1 (8m 47s): And it has this unbelievable But for the sunlight. Then on day four, you could begin to notice with the flowers. You need to have the Brown a little bit fragrances while still notice is nowhere near as the portal becomes a little bit more Brown, day six, it begins the wilting continues Speaker 3 (9m 27s): And it's all kind of shriveled up Speaker 1 (9m 28s): And in about a week at fault. Now there are things you can do. You could cut that flower, often, put it in a jar and use some attitudes to keep the flower alive longer. But at that point in time, you cut it off the tree. And I think that metaphor of the garden giving way to the flower beauty, and it's a real flowering and in all its glory and then we'll do it. That's the cycle. Not only have a flower but of our life in our society. And I would argue that Speaker 3 (10m 18s): It kind of where our society is right now. I think so. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10m 21s): And it would be the editor's of the guardian you have in Browning for a while i...

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Everyone out there, I haven't talked to you for a while. You doing well. Did you get a haircut? Looks good, I like it. What else is going on?

Having a good day, good evening. Are you enjoying a glass of red wine, relaxing, having a beautiful sunset, thinking about your family? Well, I hope you're doing something worthwhile. I hope you choose to guard the thoughts that attempt to enter your consciousness. Hi, for one, having a great day. Thanks for asking. Or thank you for thinking. speaking about the topic of thinking, I have been reading a fascinating book called The Dialogues

of Alfred North Whitehead. You ever get a chance to pick up anything by Alfred North Whitehead, I would highly suggest you do it. And that is what this podcast is going to be about. It's important to note that the majority of this book takes place from 1840 to 1940. It goes into a little bit of history and then it gets into Mr. Alfred North Whitehead's Life. We're going to be going through some of his ideas, some of his thoughts. And mind you, this is a book not particularly about anything in particular. It is in fact a series of dialogues that he had with a couple of different reporters. So without any further waiting on your part, let's dig in here.

I'm just going to go from time to time and read some things that I've highlighted and maybe give my thoughts, of course, allowing you some time to think about your thoughts. Let's talk about his idea of what it means to be a philosopher. And here's what he has to say. To have made friends with the enemy. To have domesticated the infinite in one's own soul. We have no black looks or angry words for our neighbors. If he enjoys himself in his own way.

The whole earth is the sepulture of famous men. And their story is not graven only on stone over their native. earth, but lies on far away without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other men's lives. Pretty deep, right? So we're just going to go through and check out a few more quotes and when we get to something kind of meaty. I'm going to jump in and tell you what I have to think about it. American newspapers give a totally wrong impression by their headlines. When one comes to read their small print, he finds that they are written by very sensible people and in their

space allotments, they are much more fair to political opponents than English ones. Clearly this was written in the 20s. On the creative arts. They write well, but not very imaginatively. American students are less well-informed but more eager to learn. English boys are less eager but more informed. The American boy knows less about what interests him more. English boy knows more about what seems to interest him less.

Interesting. I always find it fascinating to learn about different cultures. And not just by reading a book, but hearing about the perspective of other cultures from people's point of views. I think the English versus the American culture is fascinating to hear and learn about, especially from a gentleman like Alfred North Whitehead who was prior to coming to America, I would say part of not the aristocracy, but higher middle class in England. And you get an idea of the English gentleman and what it was like when he moved over here.

It's a fascinating book. And if you guys get an opportunity, I would hope that you read it. I'm going to try to stoke your curiosity by getting into some other stuff that he talked about here. Ages of upheaval, favorable to creation. I fancy they are, if not too prolonged and too violent. I think that out of great chaos can come great creation. In fact, only out of chaos can come new ideas. Without chaos and without the tearing down or the great angst.

Is it angst? describe it. Like, if you think about things right now, you could make the case that chaos is moving in on our society, like a thunderhead, like a storm clouds gathering, getting ready to pour down on us. But we need that pressure sometimes. I often wonder sometimes if, you know, as chaotic as it is, as crazy as it is right now, that nothing can be done. except to face the chaos coming towards us. And while it's easy to lay blame or say it's Biden or Trump or lazy people or capitalists, whatever you want to throw out there, it seems to me that it's unavoidable and that there is no solution.

There's just these periods of violent upheaval. we as a species need to not only face but become the catalystism like we must destroy some of the old ideas so that we can have new ones you could argue that things were so well for so long and we maintained it

I was thinking a good way to look at our environment right now let me give you an example I was out in my garden and I don't have a big garden but I like it and I think it's really beautiful And I have these gardenias and if anyone has garthenias or has ever smelled the gardenia, it's just this lovely smell of like divan.

Like it's hard to explain. However, let me try it again. Imagine a brisk, a little bit salty. Imagine that mixed with like a warm, kind of a sweet aroma of a warm vanilla. and that's kind of like how the gardenia smell. And you can begin to smell the gardenia as it begins to bloom, and the life cycle of it is maybe a week. And so you'll see the bud, and then it opens up.

These beautiful flowers, just this beautiful white flower that looks like a pure white wedding dress. And it has this unbelievable fragrance for the sunlight. And then on day four, you can begin to notice the edges of the flower, beginning to kind of brown a little bit. And the fragrance is, while still noticeable, nowhere near as potent. And then day five becomes a little bit more brown. Day six, it begins, the wilting continues, and it's all kind of shriveled up, and in about a week it falls.

Now, there are things you can do. cut that flower off and put it in a jar and use some additives to keep the flower alive longer. But at that point in time, you cut it off the tree. And I think that metaphor of the gardenia bud giving way to the flower, its beauty and its aroma, and flowering and all its glory, and then wilting. And that's the cycle, not only of a flower, but of our life and our societies. And I would argue that that's kind of where our society is right now.

I think that the edges of the Gardena have been browning for a while. And the chaos and the streets is the symptom of decay of our society. And it's sad to see it. But it's also really beautiful. But if you can just step back and look at our society and that level, our society is the most brilliant flower, flowering in the time of the spring. Enjoy it and you're thankful because you've got to be there to see it. However, now in the winter, it goes away.

And it's just something that, it's beautiful. Like the destruction, even the destruction of it. know that that's, I think that's the wrong word. It's more of like the decay. The decay of it. Close your eyes. You could imagine it slowly in slow motion just falling. That's our society right now. And you can see it as scary or chaotic. However, really, it's just a cycle of life. And it's worthy of, it's so, it's such a beautiful flower, our country, the ideas in which we chose to hold Dear to our heart, we're so beautiful. It's worthy of tears to see it. But it should be that way. Any great book, any great concert, or any great show you've ever seen, it brought you to tears because it's beautiful. And the end is sad because it has to be. It must be this way. Some people think, oh, we're, it's never, this is it, we're all going to die.

And it's not true. It's not true. Not all of us are going to die. It's just. that this particular flower has bloomed. And no matter what, you can't save it. You can't go and paint the edges of the flower white and pretend it's the same flower. No matter how much you try and cover it in gold or bronze it or cast it in a dye, you can have the image of it, but there's no actual substance left in it. And that, you know what I mean by that? If you drew the flower, it would look beautiful, but it wouldn't have the fragrance.

If you sculpted the flower, you would have the image of the flower, but it wouldn't be the flower. The same as with the United States, as we knew it from the 70s to the year 2000. But don't despair. Don't despair. Another one will bloom. It may not be the same color. It may not have the exact same fragrance. but you can bet it will be beautiful.

And the people that get to see that, if they know where to look, if they know how to look, will be able to enjoy it. And maybe we will too. I think that that should be one of our goals is to teach our kids how to understand the cycle of life and how to see the experience. You must understand the system to enjoy the experience,

but you must have the experience to truly understand the system. That's what I was thinking about, the ages of upheaval favorable to the creation. It's just art and about subjects as to which there is the very greatest enthusiasm, unanimity, and popularity. It speaks to the common people, and when art begins to break up into co-teers, I do not think it is of much significance. when these co-teers begin saying this is too fine for the vulgar to understand. I doubt if it is very good or great heart. The question arose whether science or a scientific age was hostile to poetry.

I think if some of the great poets had lived in our time, they might have been not poets but scientists. Shelley, for example, I think it quite possible that he could have been a chemist or physicist. It is in his essay on Carlisle. He says Carlisle had a low opinion of art preferred to be remembered as a prophet. Now to be a prophet, one must have three qualifications, a loud voice, a bold face, and a bad temper. That's pretty funny. Satire is the soured milk of human kindness. How singularly humorless the Bible is, remarked the doctor.

I wonder why. You would be gloomy, too, said Whitehead gravely, if you had Jehovah hanging over you. But what a contrast with the Greeks and their laughter. Where does it come in? Aristophanes. Yes, said Whitehead. But I think humor is a bit later than the stage to which the prophets belong. I think humor is a later thing, and Aristophanes is a bit special.

Is there any or much humor in Homer? Yes, said Whitehead. And when writing is new, men do not set down what they regard as trivialities and mischances. They do regard as trivial even now in primitive tribes. Some of our fellows who were out in Africa during the war tell of how the locals went down to a stream for something and came back roaring with laughter. What was the joke? Why, a crocodile had suddenly popped out of the water and snatched one of their fellows off.

One of their fellows, mind you. This came as we were rising from the table. A spring shower was falling. It could be heard making a musical put it carried on oak beams stained black with white clap. When you were speaking at table of Litten, you were speaking. at the table, said Mrs. Whitehead, whom the return to the living room had brought back into the conversation. I wanted to quote those verses by Mrs. Wordsworth of Lady Margaret Hall. If all

the good people were clever, and those that are clever were good, this world would be nicer than ever. We dreamed that it possibly could, but it seems as those seldom if ever, Do the two hit it off as they should? The good are so harsh to the clever, and the clever, so rude to the good. That is beautiful. Let's check that one out again. If all the good people were clever and those that are clever were good, this world would be nicer than ever.

We dreamed that it possibly could. But it seems as those selves. them if ever, do the two hit it off as they should, for the good are so harsh to the clever, the clever, so rude to the good. Then should clever portray painters? Ask Mrs. Nichols, flatter good, but stupid and perhaps homely sitters. It's such an amazing time capsule to go back and read, just hear the different conversations. I especially like, if you get a chance, I think letters, if you can, you can, you can,

you can often find dialogue books like this one is the dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead. Sometimes you can read the letters of embassy chiefs and hear about their correspondences. They've had a dinner and I think you can get some really good ideas of how people thought, sometimes so different than we think today and other times almost indistinguishable from a conversation you may have. Is there anything in spiritual law to compensate the truly fine pianist for two concerts a year? As against the professional showman's virtuoso's 200? I am inclined to think that is one of the permanent tragedies of life, said he, that the finer quality doesn't prevail over the next less fine. He asked why newspaper headlines are so sincere.

They are billboards to sell the article. Often they give a wrong idea of what is inside the paper. Do they? There are days when my impression is that they are our modern substitute for the Coliseum, Martyr, and Wild Beast Show. What do you think? Are today's headlines reminiscent of the Roman Coliseum? instead of watching Christians getting eaten by lions, you can see public shaming political people

or business people at Walmart. Mostly, I would say, in the last few years, the majority has been white people being ridiculed, whether it's white liberals or white rednecks. It seems to me that it is the white, our fair game. In England, owing to the difficulty of individual talents, finding their way up through class strata, people stay with their class, bring their class along, and we have a labor movement,

ably led by working class men, so ably that in 1924 and again in 1929, when we had labor governments, they were well qualified to carry on all the ministries of empire, including foreign affairs. Our labor movement is still a long way from that, and isn't that one reason why your exceptional talents can rise rapidly through the class strata, said Whitehead. They rise, but they leave their class behind. Thus, English aristocracy is creating a genuine.

genuine democracy and American democracy is creating an aristocracy. I think I talked about this in a video I did a while back. I think it's I think it rings true today you know when you see people in working class neighborhoods when you see people let me rephrase that when a leader comes from a lower class environment when there is a minority leader when there is a leader from a working class environment. Usually those leaders rise and they are given the backing of their community, the financial backing, the support, all that comes with being a leader.

And those leaders fight and begin making gains for their community. However, after a while, those leaders are taken out of the community. They trade in their time. They trade their classes. They're given a hand up into a more recognized position. They're given a chance to become part of the ruling class as long as they are willing to somewhat denounce the environment in which they came from. Does that make sense?

If you look at, say, Kaepernick or LeBron or Dr. Dre, or I'm thinking specifically from the African-American communities, where here's these people that could be phenomenal civil rights leaders. I'm not, and to be clear, I'm not judging them. I'm just throwing these examples out. You live in this inner city that's not a very nice place to live. Definitely not a nice place to have kids. when you get the opportunity to leave that community you're going to right regardless of what you say about well that's where I learned how to be street smart this is where I learned how to have all my ideas about fighting or whatever

whatever rationalization you want to use for what you were taught in that community you're going to leave it right you're not going to stay there Oprah doesn't stay anybody who no one stays in those communities, even though they use, a lot of them used the energy in that community to become leaders in that community, given the opportunity to leave that community, you'd be crazy not to leave. And that's what keeps those communities in poverty is that the people that do have the ability to lead that community out, choose to turn their back on that community when they're given the opportunity. of, hey, why don't you come and do this instead of being down there doing that?

And I think that's just human nature, whether you're white or red or black or brown or that seems to be, at least in our country. According to Whitehead, he talks about how the class system is different in England. You're born into this class. You're born into this class. You have the house of lords and the house of common. And I would argue that we have the House representatives and the Senate. We can't talk about how we vote for people, but all you need to do is look at the last few elections, popular vote versus intellectual college and voting machines.

And you realize that the level of corruption is increasing in that our system is, in fact, becoming more of an aristocracy. His ideas of students. and I think it's important to note he was a teacher at Harvard. Minds don't classify as easily as some of my colleagues appear to think. I am profoundly suspicious of the A man. He can say back what you want to hear in an examination. And since the examination is roughly a means of test,

you must give him his A if he says it back. But the ability not to say, not to say the willingness to give you back what is expected of him argues a certain shallowness and superficiality. Your B man may be a bit muddle-headed, but muddle-headedness is a condition proceeding to independent thought may actually be independent, creative thought in his first stage. Of course, it may get no further than middle-headedness, but when my colleagues chaffed me for giving more A's than they are willing to do and tax me with tender-heartedness, I reflect that I would rather not have it on my head that I was the one who discouraged an incipient talent. I once heard someone say, the A and B students make the best managers, and it's the C student who tends to be the most creative.

for the most outside the box. And his rationale was very similar in that if you're an A and B student in your whole life, you've been trained to do what the teacher tells you. You've been conditioned by the bells and the whistles and done exactly what you're told to and not talked back. Thus, you have become a perfect manager.

And the difference between a manager and a leader, I think everyone knows. In case you don't know, a manager is someone who does things right, and a leader is someone who does the right thing. And there's a difference there. Here's a good quote. I think you get a truer picture of a period from intimate letters written spontaneously. I'm sorry.

I think you get a truer picture of a period from intimate letters written spontaneously and without a thought, of publication than you do from its fiction and often better than from its historians. I like that too. I think that's true. How about the idea of enthusiasm? We were talking about enthusiasm, how the tendency around here is to frown it down. Nothing great or new can be done without enthusiasm. And this he has plenty. And this community, and this community, and this community never damped it down, but he comes from the Midwest and can't be understood without that fact. He said he thought that, beginning in colonial times, the outgoing people who found the atmosphere of the Massachusetts Bay colony a bit oppressive, moved on to Connecticut and

Rhode Island, Hartford, New Haven, Providence, and that in turn those who found Connecticut a bit Slow moved on after the revolution to the Western Reserve in Ohio, where he came from, and he said he had picked up further footprints of this long trek in Bloomington, Indiana, and somewhere else on, out. I think that was it, said Whitehead. The vivid people keep moving on geographically and otherwise, for men can be provincial in time as well as in place. What do you think about that?

Think about the term, that person's very outgoing. I think it says it all. That person's leaving. The person's very outgoing. They're willing to go out. I would, I like it. I think that there's something there.

You know, think about your ancestors. If you live in our country, you have immigrated at some time, probably. Have you moved on from the town in which you lived? Do you feel a common bond with people that seem to be always traveling or leading their family? When you look at your family, do you have brothers and sisters or cousins who have lived in the same area for the entirety of their life? Or do you have some family members who have been dispersed around the nation? Interesting to think about.

Perfection just precedes a change and signifies the approaching. end of an epoch. This is an interesting, let's talk about this one for a minute. Since the talk moved to the Yankee clipper ships in the 19th century and the Glucester Fishing Schooners in the 20th, having each in their turn reached a culminating point where they were works of art, only to be superseded the clippers by steam, the schooners, by the internal combustion engine. As I remember, said Whitehead, perfection just precedes a change

and signifies the approaching end of an epoch. This discussion was carried over from table to coffee in the living room, where it was presently being remarked by the host that American inventiveness is not as primarily originative as it often gets the credit of being, but is frequently in the secondary inventions that defused the article in the general use.

You didn't really lead off with the automobile, he continued. The French did that. What you did was adapted to the multitude. Yes, and doesn't most of this inventiveness come down in the end to apparatus for the transportation of bodies and the transmission of thought, not thought itself? How about original thought? If these United States were engulfed like the fabled continent of Atlantis, what would we have left by which to be remembered? Any thoughts?

What do you guys think? If the U.S. came down today, was swallowed into the depths of the ocean, what would we have left by which to be remembered? According to this gentleman, your diffusion of literacy and average comfort and well-being among the masses, in my opinion, is one of the major achievements in human history. In previous lands and times, even under the best conditions, the diffusion of culture was to only a small stratum at the top. never more than 20% at the most. I think this extending to the multitude of at least a decent standard of living as an enormous contribution to civilization. That is incredibly relevant to what we see today.

If you live in a first world country and your family makes over $100,000, You are part of the 1% You live a life That is greater In some ways than the medieval kings of Europe You can have fruit from all over the world Brought to your home Keep it refrigerated

You can travel through the air Via automobile Different states Across the world In a relatively short amount of time It's interesting to think about But if this is something, it's such a blip, it's such a blip the timeline of our planet, where there's been so much wealth created that so many people can enjoy the fullness of the

earth. The Egyptian priest in Plato's story told so long, you Greeks are only boys. The point is they did it on their own, and like America, they were rather violent. That's interesting to think about right. you think about the stories from ancient Greece and Solon going to Egypt and being taken under the sphinx to see the Hall of Records and having some look into the history of the pharaohs and so long being told that their generation is merely children, their society, that their Entirety as merely children.

I question the value to the average student of digging out the niceties of meaning from the texts. The Greeks themselves wouldn't have done such a thing. And when Greek scholars tell me, yes, but what our author really meant was, they aren't helping along the thought. They say any other method is anachronistic. I'm not sure, but the true anachronism is the other way. around. This backward-looking traditionalism came in at the Renaissance. It wasn't Greek. My own department, philosophy, has been especially a sufferer from it. That is why I have attempted to invent new

terminologies for new concepts. There is a jargon of thinking which gets in the way of thought itself. It is as bad as the archaeologizing of American art. In the great period of Renaissance painting, the princess bought pictures that were being painted then, not centuries before. If your millionaires would spend their money not on collecting old masters, but on contemporary paintings, your American art would have a better flourishing. Something be extended to not just art, but also any sort of commodity. or any sort of thinking like that.

I can understand when societies get in trouble looking back to a time when in fact things were better. And trying to find out what it was about those times that made it better. However, investing in relics instead of investing in the future seems to me to be a recipe for stagnation. Here he is on literature. That is its difference from Europe. In England, I think after the Tempest got itself written, let us say after 1610, the vivid and sensitive people, the artistic type, got their satisfaction no longer out of the aesthetic creation, but out of religious experience.

At least for the next 50 years, you will notice a distinct falling off in art, architecture, and poetry. Until after the reign of Queen Anne. The literature is good, even work of genius, but not as good. The architecture has elegance but lacks power. Now I think religious experience lacks something which is got out of artistic expression. It stirs, but it does not soothe. Perhaps it is that it lacks the intellectual discipline of artistic expression.

When people watch a gorgeous sunset, for example, they are excited, but they are also soothed. And when you add to this, the element of order which the artist introduces into his creation, which must also be grasped by the enjoyer, there is mental effort required in cooperation. with the artist in order to produce the effect. That's a fascinating thing to think about, right? If you want to create something that is truly able to transcend,

then you must create an expression that has both elegance and power, something that we can see in nature, like the sunset, that is, You're excited to see it, but you're all so soon. You know, think about a sunset. It's just this unbelievable power source, slowly, gently giving away, sinking into the ocean. It's amazing, right?

It's really beautiful. If you close your eyes, you can probably imagine it. What other concept can you think of that combines the burning sensation of, the sun, soothing healing power of the ocean, merging into one. That, my friend, if you figure that out, and you're able to provide that experience for someone to view, will make you and your idea transcend time. Who suppose is the difference between religious experience and aesthetic experience? which seems so often to make the second a response to an art form or to aesthetic feeling so much more wholesome.

I should say it was just that. Aesthetic experience suited as well as excites. Religious experience is more apt to leave one suspended in the air. The emotions aroused, but not satisfied. In science and the modern world, I have dealt. with the necessity of irreverence. He got down the volume from the shelves and found the passage in chapter 13, which we read aloud together.

Is it that nothing, no experience, good or bad, no belief, no cause is in itself momentous enough to monopolize the whole of life to the exclusion of laughter, Laughter is our reminder that our theories are an attempt to make existence intelligible, but necessarily only an attempt, and does not be irrational, the instinctive burst in, to keep the balance true by laughter. Oh, that's classic.

Have you ever just been balls deep in an idea or? in an argument or in, you know, studying something and believing you're an authority figure, or have you heard someone do that? Like, this is what it is. I am an expert. I am an authoritative source on this. You know, sometimes the more you can clearly see through arrogance. That is funny, too.

It's funny when someone is incredibly arrogant and cocky and they're proven wrong. Like, that just makes everybody laugh. Not because it's a bad person that's arrogant, but because we all make that mistake. We all sometimes think we know. And on the flip side, it's almost painful sometimes to see somebody who thinks they know, but they don't. Right now we've traded arrogance for ignorance, and there's a time for laughter in both of those cases. I hope that when you think about that particular section, it allows you to laugh at yourself.

I know, man, I do so many dumb things. I always think I know things, but then I just find myself laughing. Like, no, I don't. I don't know that. But it's also ammo for your conversations, too. When you hear people talk and they're so sure about things, then you can just ask a question where you could maybe, it's, it's, I find it, I hope this doesn't make me sound like a dick,

but I find it rewarding to talk to someone, and have either them point out my flaws in my thinking, which there is a lot of, or sometimes I like to point out their flaws. And if you can do it in a kind and elegant way, I think you can have respect for one another. A lot of the times I know when people have done it to me, they have, I have been pontificating on something I think is just this and this and this,

and I lay out my case. and I have been you know given what I call the padded two by four where someone will oh you think that and then they will ask me another question that points out the inconsistencies in which I have fallen victim to

so it's fun and I love language and I love talking to people and I kind of like arguing right I think it's something that really helps you understand who you are. And if you can find someone who will argue with you that will do it in good fun, I think you'll find a friend for life.

It often seems to me, Whitehead resumed, that European man was at his best between 1400 and 1600. Since then, our appreciation of beauty has become too overlaid with intellectualizing. Intellectualizing We educated people have our aesthetic sense too highly cultivated and do not come to beauty simply enough. It is possible that the feeling for beauty is much more true and strong in unschooled people than in ourselves.

The early cathedral builders, even the Norman and Romanesque, did not theorize they built, and the poets went to work much more directly. We have today over-elaborate the only place I see where another great flowering of European culture might come is in. Are you ready for this? This is where this gentleman sees or saw the next great flowering of European culture. Any guesses? The American Middle West. In the Midwest. Which, if you think.

Think about how the Midwest is thought of today, it's usually by the, it seems that if you consider the coastal areas of New York and Silicon Valley, the intellectual elite, they would have the exact opposite view of a flowering culture in the Midwest. Talk a little bit more about what, where you start could be fresh and from the ground up. You and your chapter have dealt sensibly with the problem as between Americans and Europe. Americans must not copy Europe. They must be themselves, must create de novo. These American imitations of Europe will always lack interest and vitality, as all derivatives do. Let Americans study Europe and see what has been done.

But when it comes to creation, God bless my soul, then forget everything that has ever been done before and create. In the deeper reaches of creation, there is nothing else you can do. Your learning may help you, but it can't save you. It can only help. By having been so assimilated as to have become unconscious and forgotten, as you have written, there is something backward-looking in most universities dealing with literature. It is not what is to be done. It is what has been done. I'm going to stop there for a second. That's a huge problem, right? And I think that this particular dialogue right here that we just spoke about is in fact why we're in such a mess today. In our schools and our education system, we never teach what is to be done.

we only teach what has been done we don't say that we should end all slavery we say that these people have been enslaved we don't say that we should find a way for

everyone to achieve the best life that they can we say these people have done this so now they have that we've gotten away from talking about solutions and focused mainly on the problems and it is apt to be unctuous that's a great word by the way it means like oily or disrespective of the persons think of like a like an oily sarcasm right like It's one of those people, and they would be unctuous. It is apt to be unctuous and deferential. I have a horror of creative intelligence congealing into too good teaching.

Static ideas. This is the correct thing to know. Passive acceptance of polite learning without any attention of doing anything about it. Teachers should be acutely conscious of the deficiencies in the matter taught. What they are teaching may be quite lacking in the necessary ingredients of nutriment. They should be on their guard against their materials

and teach their students to be on their guard against them. Once learning solidifies, all is over with. These college faculties are going to want watching. The danger is that education will freeze, and it will be thought. This and this are the right things to know. And when that happens, thought is dead. I am immensely annoyed by the smugness of a certain kind of talk which goes on among my colleagues.

Scornful talk about no theory being good that is only half tested. And the meticulous assembling of facts. Also the aloofness of the university from practical life. not only the federal and state governments, but even municipal affairs. There is a great function which awaits the American universities, and that is to civilize business, or better, to get businessmen to civilize themselves by using their power over the practical processes of life to civilize their sociological functions. It is not enough that they should amass fortunes in this way. or that and then endow a college or a hospital.

The motive in amassing the fortune should be in order to use it for a socially constructive end. Wow. I'm willing to bet they don't teach that in any business school. Pretty profound. Let me read a little bit more here. What a man with so altruistic a motive ever be able to amass a fortune? It would probably be given away as fast as he amassed it. What I mean is law has been civilized.

That was done by the Greeks and the Romans, Justinian and the lot. Medicine has been taken out of magic. Education has been getting rid of its humbug. And next it is time to teach business its sociological function. For if America is to be civilized, it must be done, at least for the present, by the business class, who are in possession of the power. the economic processes. I don't need to tell you that there is a good deal of sniffing on this.

The Harvard College and Graduate Schools side of the Charles River sniffing at the new Harvard School of Business Administration on the opposite bank. That strikes me as snobbish and unimaginative. If the American universities were up to their job, they would be taking business in hand and teaching it ethics and professional standards. He said that he thought the interpretation of history by economic determinism was a singularly deficient method, and that even such an attempt at the unification of the world as Alexander's Hellenization of Eastern Asia, success though he made and muddle though he left, was a nobler effort and a more effective agent.

any aristocracy that shrews, that shrews its leadership, is done for. That's about an hour in right here, so I don't want to make it too long, but I will catch you tomorrow, my friends. Hope you enjoyed the world of Alfred North Whitehead combined with a little sprinkling of George Monta. Hope you have a great day, and you choose to see the beauty of yourself. the luxury. Send kind of wishes to your friends.