This is a retrospective of week 2, 2025 (2025-01-06–2025-01-12).
This week I’ve listened to interviews with Edward Close1,2 and Matthew Segall.3,4,5 Below are some highlights (my emphasis).
Edward Close on Mathematics and Consciousness
I think that mathematics is a reflection of the logical structure of reality.
—Edward Close https://youtu.be/a8qp2TNFO6A?t=537
I believe he [George Spencer Brown in the Laws of Form] contributed some very important things. Possibly the most important was in altering the theory of types, which was put forth by Russell and Whitehead and their work, and that was to introduce the idea of complex numbers, particularly of so-called imaginary numbers, into the algebra of logic.
—Edward Close https://youtu.be/a8qp2TNFO6A?t=623
Mathematics and physics are all based on some a priori assumptions at some point that are not provable within the system that’s developed… People tend to think that these things are absolute.
—Edward Close https://youtu.be/a8qp2TNFO6A?t=1917
It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking you’ve got a [mathematical] proof when actually you don’t.
—Edward Close https://youtu.be/a8qp2TNFO6A?t=2220
Erwin Schrödinger…actually made the statement in his little book, What is Life?, …that there’s no evidence that consciousness has a plural. Now, this is a little hard for linear thinking…to grasp, because we like to connect things A to B to C in a linear fashion. But, in fact, if consciousness is only one, then we all have, so to speak, sparks or droplets of that one thing…
—Edward Close https://youtu.be/mYNZAq7LPj8?t=528
Matthew Segall on Collective Intelligence, Metaphysical Presuppositions, and Consciousness
All intelligence is collective intelligence, I say, right?
—Matthew Segall https://youtu.be/vW-0KvwRjeo?t=3891
…the old ways of thinking and, and doing and being are no longer adequate to the circumstances we find ourselves in. And we need more than just a new philosophical perspective to deal with this situation, but I think our, our basic attitude and view of what the human being is and our role in the universe needs to change.
—Matthew Segall, Experiential Philosophy, Psychedelic Entities, and Naturalistic Reincarnation: Cheltenham and UK Philosophers Interview
…science is no longer telling us what nature is in itself; it’s only telling us how nature appears to our kind of mind.
—Matthew Segall, Experiential Philosophy, Psychedelic Entities, and Naturalistic Reincarnation: Cheltenham and UK Philosophers Interview
…I see Whitehead as having a deeper grasp of the intuitive dimension of mathematics that could not be reduced to some series of logical deductions or formalisms.
—Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith
…it is as though a methodological shortcut, which would allow one to build toy models of the universe that may have some predictive success and technological application, became mistaken for—or gradually became—reified as a metaphysical presupposition, and so reified, in fact, that it became unconscious.
—Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith
Physicists nowadays do not even recognize … that they are unconscious metaphysicians who have removed themselves, and everything subjective and intelligent, from the universe so as to gain access to a very simplified model—“toy model” of what the universe is and how it might operate.
—Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith
…physics has become ontologically confused about what is real versus what is an artifact of their means of calculating what is real…
—Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith
…the fact that there is consciousness suggests to me—and should suggest to cognitive scientists—that they are making some ontological mistakes earlier in the process of reasoning that led to this so-called “hard problem of consciousness.” The solution to the hard problem of consciousness is to change our ontology, ultimately.
—Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith
I’ve also read Sarah Kendzior’s Newsletter this week. Kendzior reminds us that “[w]hen a climate catastrophe strikes, you do not recover, even if you are among the spared.” She continues, “[s]ome of my neighbors lost everything and I’m all too aware that it could have been me — and might be next time.”6
No one escapes climate change!
Notes:
1. New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove, Mathematics and the Physical Universe with Edward R. Close, 2019-11-29, 41:42, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qp2TNFO6A.
2. New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove, Reincarnation or Resonance? with Vernon Neppe and Ed Close, 2024-06-28, 54:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYNZAq7LPj8.
3. Cheltenham and UK Philosophers, Asst Professor Matt Segall interviewed by Matt Gray, 2025-01-08, 1:34:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW-0KvwRjeo.
4. Matthew Segall, Experiential Philosophy, Psychedelic Entities, and Naturalistic Reincarnation: Cheltenham and UK Philosophers Interview, 2025-01-09, https://open.substack.com/pub/footnotes2plato/p/experiential-philosophy-psychedelic.
5. Matthew Segall, Platonic Physics: In Dialogue with Wolfgang Smith, 2023-01-23, https://footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/platonic-physics-in-dialogue-with-wolfgang-smith.
6. Sarah Kendzior, Fantasy on Fire – Sarah Kendzior’s Newsletter, 2025-01-11, https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/fantasy-on-fire.
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