Episode 151: The Real and the Possible: Live at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, with Jacob G. Foster

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2023

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, the cultural historian William Irwin Thompson predicted the rise of a new form of knowledge building, a direly needed alternative to the Wissenshaft of standard science and scholarship. He called it Wissenskunst, "the play of knowledge in a world of serious data processors." Wissenskunst is pretty much what JF and Phil have been aspiring to do on Weird Studies since 2018, but in this episode they are joined by a master of the craft, the computational sociologist and physicist Jacob G. Foster of UCLA. Jacob is the co-founder of the Diverse Intelligence Summer Institute (DISI), a gathering of scholars, scientists, and students that takes place each year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. It was there that this conversation was recorded. The topic was the Possible, that dream-blurred vanishing point where art, philosophy, and science converge as imaginative and creative practices. Click here or here for more information on Shannon Taggart's Science of Things Spiritual Symposium at Lily Dale NY, July 27-29 2023. Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's podcast on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Download Pierre-Yves Martel's new album, Mer Bleue. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute "Deconstructing the Barrier of Meaning," a talk by Jacob G. Foster at the Santa Fe Institute William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture Frederic Rzewski, “Little Bangs: A Nihilist Theory of Improvisation” Brian Eno, Oblique Strategies The accident of Bob in Twin Peaks Carl Jung, “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry August Kekule,, German chemist Robert Dijkgraaf, “Contemplating the End of Physics” Richard Baker, American zen teacher Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts William Shakespeare, Macbeth Shoggoth, Lovecraftian entity Special Guest: Jacob G. Foster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.8	For more episodes or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdstud J.F.
0:52.6	Earlier this month, Phil and I attended the D.E.
0:55.0	D.C., for short, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. D.C. is a three-week
1:02.5	academic event where established and emerging researchers in the social sciences, the natural
1:07.9	sciences, and the humanities come together to explore the phenomenon of
1:11.4	intelligence, broadly construed, human and non, in a truly interdisciplinary environment.
1:17.9	Long-time listeners will recall that we attended DC last year and released a live show we
1:22.3	recorded at the end of the conference. That was episode 131. To our surprise and relief, we were invited back this year,
1:30.3	and this time I like to think we turned and faced the strange, as David Bowie put it.
1:34.8	Phil gave a talk on unidentified anomalous phenomena, and I talked about how we're living in a fairy tale,
1:40.5	like literally in a fairy tale. While those talks went unrecorded, sadly, we did capture our capstone dialogue with sociologist, physicist, and DC co-founder Jacob Foster of UCLA.
1:52.7	And this, dear listeners, is what we bring to you today, raw and uncut.
1:57.5	Jacob is a devoted Weird Studies listener, who in the years since we met him has become a dear friend and an intellectual comrade.
2:05.2	Inspired by a recent talk he gave at the Santa Fe Institute, link in the show notes, we settled on the reality of the possible as our topic.
2:13.0	It was an exhilarating conversation that I hope you will enjoy.
2:17.0	Our live show at D. at DC was the first of two
2:19.4	live recordings we have the pleasure of doing this summer. The second will take place on Thursday,
2:24.1	July 27th, at Shannon Taggart's Science of Things Spiritual Symposium in Lillydale, New York.
2:31.1	Again, some of you will recall a fantastic conversation we had with Shannon back in
	...

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