Metamodern Spirituality Brendan Graham Dempsey

Complexity scientist David Wolpert joins me to consider the idea of meaning at its most fundamental level. Historically, information theory has helped us quantify information (e.g., bits), but says nothing about the ways information might be useful, significant, relevant, or meaningful. Recently, however, Wolpert and colleagues have filled in what's missing from that account, offering a theory of "semantic" or "meaningful" information by showing how some information actually has causal power to influence the well-being and viability of systems in context. Here we explore this idea and a number of its implications for what's "meaningful" across the complexity stack, from a whirlpool to a bacterium all the way up to us.



0:00 Introduction

0:46 Meaning and Semantic Information

2:17 Background Context: Information Theory, Utility Functions, and Statistical Thermodynamics

14:03 Meaning FOR a System: What Information Helps One Stay Far from Equilibrium

21:54 Meaning: Mutual Information with Causal Power for Viability

27:57 Meaning and Meaurement up the Complexity Stack

33:42 Indirect Meaning, Chains of Significance, and Intelligence

37:20 A Semantic Information Theory of Individuality?

42:03 Relative vs. Absolute Semantic Information Metrics

49:52 The Complexification of Meaningful Information through Evolutionary Transitions

52:30 Layered Meaning through Evolution

Philosopher Zak Stein joins me to discuss the "the great post-postmodern project, the reconstruction of value itself," and get into the nuances of what his framework looks like as presented in his new co-authored book First Principles & First Values. What does it mean to say that value is both fundamental and relational? How does a metaphysics of value avoid premodern pitfalls (e.g., the myth of the given, a God's-eye view/view from nowhere, etc.)? What are the challenges posed by language when trying to track value across discontinuities in the complexity stack? Here we compare notes on our respective projects and try to clarify key points.



0:00 Introduction

1:58 Summary Overview of First Principles & First Values

7:35 The Project: A Post-Postmodern Reconstruction of Value

12:44 Is Positing Value as Fundamental a Premodern Move?

32:24 "Value": Avoiding Reification

39:11 Languaging the Reconstruction: Difficulties and Diversity

48:29 The Challenge and Importance of Modern Critique of Value

52:39 "Intimacy" or "Complexity"? Seeking Normative Terminology without Anthropomorphizing

1:03:07 Shifting the Paradigm: Translation or Equivocation?

1:06:25 Panpsychist vs. Emergentist Framings

1:10:26 Shifting Telos across Scales: E.g., Dissipative Structures

1:17:56 Value and Anti-Value

1:22:04 New God: Moving towards the Infinite Intimate

1:27:21 Building the Cathedral/Temple: Living with Sacred Purpose

Process thinker Jared Morningstar joins me to discuss the relationship of metamodernism to traditional forms of religion. How can engaging the traditional frame be done without losing hard-won gains in complexity and perspective-taking? Here Jared advocates for an open, flexible, and epistemically humble form of experimentation and participation in different religious modalities. We consider the role of 'causal opacity' in religious functionality and whether reflection is inherently harmful to generating emergent potential in religious contexts. We also explore the ways traditional faiths may be genuinely engaging with hyper-complex phenomena and how tradition-specific language can be helpful in extending faith into metamodernity. Finally, we discuss the role of plurality and singularity, the general and the particular, in what it means to engage religion from a metamodern perspective.



0:00 Introduction

1:34 Reaction vs. Reconstruction: Which Direction Is Calling?

10:50 Unseen Causes: Participatory Experimentation and Epistemic Humility

17:43 Breaking the Frame: Causation, Disenchantment, and Etic vs. Emic Perspectives

24:25 Moving In and Out of Tradition: Looking Back or Going Back?

35:24 Superstition or Super-Complexity? Parsing Tradition's Relationship with Hyperobjects

50:03 Beyond Perennialism: Religious Pluralism and Traditional Particularity

1:03:09 Living the Openness

1:10:59 Orienting Value in the Uncertainty

1:18:46 Integrating the General and the Particular: Heading Out and Coming Home

1:23:33 Conclusion

Integrative thinker Layman Pascal joins me to talk about the meaning of "God" from a metamodern perspective. How does thinking in terms of "surplus cohesion" point us to a helpful way of relating to all the meanings of the term? Why and when is a 2nd person relationship with Reality warranted? Who is this Face in the Universe summoning us to greater communion and transcendence? How do we communicate about all this across the various memetic sensemaking structures of culture (traditional, modern, postmodern metamodern)? Finally, what can folks expect about the upcoming metamodern spirituality gathering on the topic, which will be hosted at Sky Meadow in May and led by Layman?



0:00 Introduction

1:21 Layman's "Surplus Cohesion" Framework

4:48 God as Ultimate Reality in the 2nd Person

9:52 The Face of the Universe: Seeking the 2nd Person in the Complexity Stack

16:27 Some Framing: Reality as Dynamic Becoming, Not Static Being

21:36 Reflecting on the Alpha and the Omega: Problematizing the "Creator" Image

27:46 But Is This Still God? Communicating across Memetic Tribes

37:22 "Real in What Way?" across Levels of Memetic Complexity

45:05 Summarizing a Metamodern Sort of God

47:06 "God" in Quotation Marks: Moving beyond Totality

52:10 The God Encounter

1:08:12 The Divine Other

1:13:33 Praxis: Courting Visio Divina

1:16:41 Pluralistic Mysticism

1:23:10 Trinity as Dynamic Architectonic Plurality

1:27:08 Naturalism and Metaphysics

1:30:46 God is Love

1:37:20 Talking about "The G Word"

1:39:40 The Upcoming Metamodern Spirituality Lab on "God" at Sky Meadow (May 24-26)



More on the metamodern spirituality lab at www.skymeadowinstitute.org

Process theologian Jay McDaniel joins me to discuss the contributions of process thought to the Christian tradition. What points of similarity and dissimilarity are there between process thinking and traditional, modern, and postmodern lenses?



0:00 Introduction

1:06 What Does Theology Look Like from a "Process" Lens?



Relationship with Traditional Faith

5:44 A Feeling, Responding God

8:40 Not All-Powerful

14:40 A Dynamic, Living Whole



Relationship with Modern Thought

19:41 The Naturalistic Paradigm and (the) Beyond

24:30 A Theology of Organism and Complexity

29:30 "God" as Counter-Entropic Lure and Preserver of Good

39:33 A Modern Gestalt for Christianity?

49:31 Looking Forward, Not Back

54:52 The Pathos of God



Relationship with Postmodern Thought

1:04:38 Play, Beauty, Reality



Relationship with Metamodernism

1:10:33 Lineages, Legacies, and Futures



1:14:40 Conclusion

Here I lay out my conception of what a metamodern version of Christianity looks like. Drawing on the insights of all the previous cultural paradigms, the revelation of God's nature and the deepening quality of the relationship between God and man can be understood as progressing through a series of covenants/dispensations that map to a learning process unfolding through time. Such a perspective helps us non-arbitrarily coordinate tribal, imperial, traditional, modern, and postmodern conceptions of God that have manifested across sacred history. All of these are necessary and contribute to a coherent story of deepening understanding about and relationship with the ever-transcendent Divine.



0:00 Introduction

0:56 "Metamodern"

5:50 "Christianity"

9:00 Sacred History as Learning and Expansion

11:43 Dynamics of Learning: Assimilation and Accomodation

16:47 Learning as Complexification of Thought

18:04 The Revelation of God as a Learning Process

24:34 1. The Sacred Relationship in the Tribal Epoch

26:12 2. Relationship with God in the Monarchy

29:02 3. Deepening Divine Relationship in the Prophets and Gospels

31:10 Recap: The Arc of Learning God Better

33:41 4. Revelation in the Modern Era

40:05 5. The Way of Jesus in Postmodernity

42:09 6. Metamodern Christianity: Embracing All Stages of Revelation

53:37 Conclusion