47 episodes
Clerestory (Bryan Kam) Bryan Kam
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- Arts
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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A podcast on philosophy. I'm interested in the origins of complexity, suffering, and selfhood. I'm now lucky to have conversations with amazing people, mostly on Eastern/Western philosophy. Early episodes are my monologues (with prose followed by poetry).
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Writing and AI with Maggie Appleton
It's been nearly a year since our last episode, in which Maggie Appleton and I discussed why we write.
A year is a long time in AI; has it made much progress in how it writes? Possibly not, but it has made some progress in search.
Discussed:
Search engines Perplexity and Exa
Excellent IFS therapy app Refract.space
Philosophy Discord: The Speculative Discord
Philosophy Telegram channel: The Underground University
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Creative Quandary Clinic, Part 2
At the end of 2023, I asked seven people I knew to join me in a WhatsApp group experiment. Read more here.
We set up a schedule by which one of us, each Thursday, would record a (suggested) 5 minute question on a creative or existential quandary we were facing.
The other seven members had committed to responding with a (suggested) 10 minute response, meaning that one person would ask a question, and receive over an hour of perspectives.
Over two months this WhatsApp group supported each other through the trials and tribulations of the holiday period, finishing a documentary film, the meaning of intuition, seasonality, the struggle to re-engage with work, and more.
This episode of Clerestory contains an audio call with seven of the eight participants.
Clerestory by Bryan Kam • Infrequent updates at Substack • All my work plus exclusive content at Patreon
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bkam/message -
Creative Quandary Clinic, Part 1
At the end of 2023, I asked seven people I knew to join me in a WhatsApp group experiment. Read more here.
We set up a schedule by which one of us, each Thursday, would record a (suggested) 5 minute question on a creative or existential quandary we were facing.
The other seven members had committed to responding with a (suggested) 10 minute response, meaning that one person would ask a question, and receive over an hour of perspectives.
Over two months this WhatsApp group supported each other through the trials and tribulations of the holiday period, finishing a documentary film, the meaning of intuition, seasonality, the struggle to re-engage with work, and more.
This episode of Clerestory contains asynchronous voicenote reflections from seven of the eight participants on how the experience went.
Stay tuned for an article describing how to set up such a group for yourself, and another synchronous conversation from the participants.
Clerestory by Bryan Kam • Infrequent updates at Substack • All my work plus exclusive content at Patreon
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bkam/message -
Has the Human Experience Changed? with Isabela Granic
Part 8 in a series of interviews on the book I'm working on, Neither/Nor. In this episode, Isabela Granic and I discuss:
Julian Jaynes
The Aphoristic style of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Jaynes, and others
The Axial Age and whether it changed human cognition ad experience
Obviousnesses and ideology, from Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1975)
A review of Kuhn's Last Writings in the LRB.
Previous episodes:
Part 7 of this series: Jaynes, Tolstoy, Zhuangzi
Part 6 of this series: Mental Proliferation
Part 5 of this series: Crises and Revolutions
Part 4 of this series: Language and Experience
Part 3 of this series: AI and Pyrrhonism
Part 2 of this series: A Philosophical Journey
Part 1 of this series: Causality and Conditionality
Clerestory by Bryan Kam • Infrequent updates at Substack • All my work plus exclusive content at Patreon
Show notes
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bkam/message -
Jaynes, Tolstoy, and Zhuangzi, with Isabela Granic
Part 7 in a series of interviews on the book I'm working on, Neither/Nor. In this episode, Isabela Granic asks about three thinkers that have influenced my thinking: Julian Jaynes (1920–1997), Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), and Zhuangzi (369–286 BC) sometimes written Zhuang Zhou or Chuang-tzǔ).
Previous episodes:
Part 6 of this series: Mental Proliferation
Part 5 of this series: Crises and Revolutions
Part 4 of this series: Language and Experience
Part 3 of this series: AI and Pyrrhonism
Part 2 of this series: A Philosophical Journey
Part 1 of this series: Causality and Conditionality
Clerestory by Bryan Kam • Infrequent updates at Substack • All my work plus exclusive content at Patreon
Show notes
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bkam/message -
Epistolary: Meaningful Living vs Making a Living (Part 6)
How do you balance your life’s purpose, your creative impulse, or your art, with the realities of life?
Here are the final four responses I received. Thanks to Peter, Olga Yakimenko, Rainbow, and Kevin Bowers.
Clerestory by Bryan Kam • Infrequent updates at Substack • All my work plus exclusive content at Patreon
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bkam/message
Customer Reviews
Extends One’s Thinking
Refreshingly approachable explorations in the world of philosophy! Down to earth and non-didactic. I love how Bryan makes connections between different concepts across various schools of philosophy, different thinkers, and across the ages. This feels like journeying along with a friend, discovering what matters, and meandering along the paths that peak one’s curiosity.