There's nothing about this writing, that I don't love. Beautiful, and provoking.
Speaking of "provocation" I'd like to offer a perspective, in the spirit of "iron sharpens iron" rather than "disagreeing."
"Since God is omniscient, he must already see the full arc of our fate."
Does "omniscience" REALLY translate to determinism ???
How bored would God be, spectating at a football match, already knowing the result ?
And does Kant solve this, by taking God out of the equation ? "Emmanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason restored to us a world of relations, but predicated them on our own human capacities."
My perspective is, we don't have "free will" and nothing is pre determined.
Both notions, when really looked at, are limiting.
What life is, is even BETTER. Both omniscience AND free will, simultaneously.
Unlimited possibility. ANYTHING is infinitely possible.
And we are inextricably, mysteriously locked in that dance, of spontaneous co-creation, with the cosmos.
Dr Iain McGilcrist speaks of it in this video beautifully. From 56 min up to on the hour.
Thank you so much for this Fi! Stimulating these kinds of interesting thoughts are exactly what I'm hoping to do here, and you are returning the favor with your perspective. Gears are a turnin', I'll jump right in :)
> Does "omniscience" REALLY translate to determinism ??? How bored would God be, spectating at a football match, already knowing the result ?
I do believe you're right about this. It speaks to Leibniz's dogmatism that he couldn't imagine anything short of an absolutely clockwork God's eye view of the cosmos. He is also one of the most bafflingly "anti-possibility" of thinkers, when you actually take his ideas fully seriously.
His is a world where we're all as predetermined as a computer program, spinning like isolated independent tops until we drop. A world we're inextricably locked in not a dance but an animatronic march. Very much the opposite of the world you describe.
> Both omniscience AND free will, simultaneously.
I've come to believe this too. The "both-and" here is, I think, the only really faithful description of our actually-lived, phenomenological experience of the world.
Another way of putting this is "fate and freedom". Not only are these not incompatible, but they also can and do feed and enliven each other. They depend on each other, in fact. Indeed, they depend on each other in "mysterious" ways—your choice of words there is perfectly on point.
Because, on first glance, this is a contradiction as mysterious as the Christian "mysteries of faith"—the transmogrification of the Eucharist, the Holy Trinity. How is something to be a mere wafer of unleavened bread, and yet at the same time the body of Christ? For a godhead to be one yet three?
Likewise, how is one to be both free and fated? It's in such mysteries that faith itself is to be found, cultivated, and galvanized.
But what I have felt called to in my thinking is to take ideas like these seriously, and to unpack them as thoroughly as possible. The Leibnizian view of the world is almost patently absurd, when we consider it phenomenologically instead of logically/abstractly (by "phenomenologically" I really just mean: with full reference to what our lived experience tells us about the world/our world).
And yet Leibniz is rightly considered one of the great philosophers, because he paints a truly coherent, fascinatingly rich metaphysical worldview.
We must strive to bring the same coherence and richness to philosophies of the future, such as the one you already intuit in your own recognitions here: that both fate and freedom are decisive and fundamental dimensions of our lived reality.
I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Kantian (do keep in mind that he also tried to bring God back into his equation! how successfully of course is debatable), but he does seem to strike at an essential truth in this regard, by distinguishing the world-as-we-make-it (a world of freedom) from the world-in-itself (a world of fate).
Two worlds—and yet, the same world. This is, to me, a (if not the) fundamental mystery. Perhaps, too, it will reveal further, still deeper mysteries, still deeper "both-and"'s—a world both with and without God, maybe? what else besides?
Thank you for these videos, too (and for the timestamps, always appreciated!) McGilchrist very much is saying something contra-Leibnizian when he says that this is a world of relations, precisely what Leibniz denies the world (Leibniz's monad is defined by its non-relationality to anything else).
And something very Hegelian in describing the purpose of life as the "universe knowing itself" (with a more Carl Sagan-y kind of framing, as Hegel would usually describe this in terms of "history" rather than "the cosmos").
I haven't had that chance to check out his work in depth, though I have heard of his great contributions to the conversations around addressing today's crisis of meaning. So I'm stoked to have this introduction and excited to dig in further—thanks for that, and generally for this opportunity to explore some truly rich ideas :)
(I got swamped in this last week btw, sorry for the late reply!)
No doubt. From Roland Barthes: “A Buddhist Koan says: ‘The master holds the disciple’s head underwater for a long, long time; at the last moment, the master pulls the disciple out and revives him: When you have craved truth as you crave air, then you will know what truth is.’”
Haha. That reminds me of a story I read somewhere, about some tribe. If they had people come back from war, who suffered prolonged PTSD, and couldn't shake it off. Part of the tribe would take them out on a boat, and deliberately drown them. But not quite kill them. I'm not sure if its true or not. But I can honestly imagine it working, and being a highly compassionate thing to do, rather than allow someone to suffer with ptsd indefinitely. Wake up their natural instinct to live again, instead of being half dead, half alive, like a zombie.
There's nothing about this writing, that I don't love. Beautiful, and provoking.
Speaking of "provocation" I'd like to offer a perspective, in the spirit of "iron sharpens iron" rather than "disagreeing."
"Since God is omniscient, he must already see the full arc of our fate."
Does "omniscience" REALLY translate to determinism ???
How bored would God be, spectating at a football match, already knowing the result ?
And does Kant solve this, by taking God out of the equation ? "Emmanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason restored to us a world of relations, but predicated them on our own human capacities."
My perspective is, we don't have "free will" and nothing is pre determined.
Both notions, when really looked at, are limiting.
What life is, is even BETTER. Both omniscience AND free will, simultaneously.
Unlimited possibility. ANYTHING is infinitely possible.
And we are inextricably, mysteriously locked in that dance, of spontaneous co-creation, with the cosmos.
Dr Iain McGilcrist speaks of it in this video beautifully. From 56 min up to on the hour.
https://youtu.be/e90hUwFvB94?si=rGIYSoskAuvDhxqm
You might also like this video...."God hasn't got a clue WTF is going on either" :)
At one hour 3 mins. https://youtu.be/Wi1U7Cw4XV0?si=KzgkOqfORMVU2e6F
If God KNEW WTF is going on.....how would that be any fun ????
> Beautiful, and provoking.
Thank you so much for this Fi! Stimulating these kinds of interesting thoughts are exactly what I'm hoping to do here, and you are returning the favor with your perspective. Gears are a turnin', I'll jump right in :)
> Does "omniscience" REALLY translate to determinism ??? How bored would God be, spectating at a football match, already knowing the result ?
I do believe you're right about this. It speaks to Leibniz's dogmatism that he couldn't imagine anything short of an absolutely clockwork God's eye view of the cosmos. He is also one of the most bafflingly "anti-possibility" of thinkers, when you actually take his ideas fully seriously.
His is a world where we're all as predetermined as a computer program, spinning like isolated independent tops until we drop. A world we're inextricably locked in not a dance but an animatronic march. Very much the opposite of the world you describe.
> Both omniscience AND free will, simultaneously.
I've come to believe this too. The "both-and" here is, I think, the only really faithful description of our actually-lived, phenomenological experience of the world.
Another way of putting this is "fate and freedom". Not only are these not incompatible, but they also can and do feed and enliven each other. They depend on each other, in fact. Indeed, they depend on each other in "mysterious" ways—your choice of words there is perfectly on point.
Because, on first glance, this is a contradiction as mysterious as the Christian "mysteries of faith"—the transmogrification of the Eucharist, the Holy Trinity. How is something to be a mere wafer of unleavened bread, and yet at the same time the body of Christ? For a godhead to be one yet three?
Likewise, how is one to be both free and fated? It's in such mysteries that faith itself is to be found, cultivated, and galvanized.
But what I have felt called to in my thinking is to take ideas like these seriously, and to unpack them as thoroughly as possible. The Leibnizian view of the world is almost patently absurd, when we consider it phenomenologically instead of logically/abstractly (by "phenomenologically" I really just mean: with full reference to what our lived experience tells us about the world/our world).
And yet Leibniz is rightly considered one of the great philosophers, because he paints a truly coherent, fascinatingly rich metaphysical worldview.
We must strive to bring the same coherence and richness to philosophies of the future, such as the one you already intuit in your own recognitions here: that both fate and freedom are decisive and fundamental dimensions of our lived reality.
I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Kantian (do keep in mind that he also tried to bring God back into his equation! how successfully of course is debatable), but he does seem to strike at an essential truth in this regard, by distinguishing the world-as-we-make-it (a world of freedom) from the world-in-itself (a world of fate).
Two worlds—and yet, the same world. This is, to me, a (if not the) fundamental mystery. Perhaps, too, it will reveal further, still deeper mysteries, still deeper "both-and"'s—a world both with and without God, maybe? what else besides?
Thank you for these videos, too (and for the timestamps, always appreciated!) McGilchrist very much is saying something contra-Leibnizian when he says that this is a world of relations, precisely what Leibniz denies the world (Leibniz's monad is defined by its non-relationality to anything else).
And something very Hegelian in describing the purpose of life as the "universe knowing itself" (with a more Carl Sagan-y kind of framing, as Hegel would usually describe this in terms of "history" rather than "the cosmos").
I haven't had that chance to check out his work in depth, though I have heard of his great contributions to the conversations around addressing today's crisis of meaning. So I'm stoked to have this introduction and excited to dig in further—thanks for that, and generally for this opportunity to explore some truly rich ideas :)
(I got swamped in this last week btw, sorry for the late reply!)
"Stimulating these kinds of interesting thoughts are exactly what I'm hoping to do here, and you are returning the favor with your perspective. "
Indeed.....
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.
No doubt. From Roland Barthes: “A Buddhist Koan says: ‘The master holds the disciple’s head underwater for a long, long time; at the last moment, the master pulls the disciple out and revives him: When you have craved truth as you crave air, then you will know what truth is.’”
Haha. That reminds me of a story I read somewhere, about some tribe. If they had people come back from war, who suffered prolonged PTSD, and couldn't shake it off. Part of the tribe would take them out on a boat, and deliberately drown them. But not quite kill them. I'm not sure if its true or not. But I can honestly imagine it working, and being a highly compassionate thing to do, rather than allow someone to suffer with ptsd indefinitely. Wake up their natural instinct to live again, instead of being half dead, half alive, like a zombie.
We are always giving attention. It just depends on what. And whether we are intentional about our attention. Or accidental.
Love this, JG.
Thank you my friend :) I have not always been so intentional with my attention recently, this is a "do as I say not as I do!"
I always said you were a little Kant
Bahah suck my Leibniz