Fluidity

Everyday reasonableness is the foundation of technical, formal, and systematic rationality. https://metarationality.com/reasonableness This is not cognitive science - The Eggplant is neither cognitive nor science, although it seeks a better understanding of some phenomena cognitive science has studied. https://metarationality.com/cognitive-science The ethnomethodological flip - A dramatic perspective shift: understanding rationality as dependent on mere reasonableness to connect it with reality. https://metarationality.com/ethnomethodological-flip You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The conclusion of Part One of In The Cells Of The Eggplant: Taking Rationalism Seriously. Acting On The Truth Rationalist theories of action try to deduce optimal choices from true beliefs. This is rarely possible in practice. https://metarationality.com/action-in-rationalism Overcoming Post-Rationalist Nihilism Realizing rationalism is wrong can be devastating. Antidotes to the ensuing rage, anxiety, and depression are available, fortunately! https://metarationality.com/post-rationalist-nihilism You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The probability of green cheese: A thought experiment shows why probability theory and statistics cannot address uncertainty in general. https://metarationality.com/small-world Statistics and the replication crisis: The mistaken belief that statistical methods can tell you what to believe drove the science replication crisis. https://metarationality.com/probabilism-crisis You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Probability theory seems an attractive foundation for rationalism—but it is not up to the job. https://metarationality.com/probabilism Leaving the casino - Probabilistic rationalism encourages you to view the whole world as a gigantic casino—but mostly it is not like that. https://metarationality.com/probabilism-applicability What probability can't do - If probability theory were an epistemology, we'd want it to tell us how confident to be in our beliefs. Unfortunately, it can't do that. https://metarationality.com/probability-limitations Mentioned in this episode: Probability Theory Does Not Extend Logic https://metarationality.com/probability-and-logic "Bayes: A Kinda-Sorta Masterpost" by Nostalgiabraist https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/161645122124/bayes-a-kinda-sorta-masterpost The "Potential Problems" section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on "Bayesian Epistemology" https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian/#PotPro You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Three short chapters from In The Cells Of The Eggplant. What can you believe? - Propositions are whatever sort of thing it is you can believe. Nothing can play that role; so we need a different understanding of belief. https://metarationality.com/propositions Where did you get that idea in the first place? - Rationalism does not explain where hypotheses, theories, discoveries, inventions, or other new ideas come from. https://metarationality.com/no-new-ideas The Spanish Inquisition - Unboundedly many issues may be relevant to any practical problem, so mathematical logic does not work as advertised. https://metarationality.com/closed-world You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Rationalist theories assume perception delivers an objective description of the world to rationality. It can't, and doesn't try to. https://metarationality.com/rationalist-perception You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Rational methods assume objects are objectively separable; but they aren't. How do we use rationality effectively anyway? https://metarationality.com/objective-objects You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Reference: rationalism's reality problem - The correspondence theory of truth doesn't work by metaphysical magic. We must do the work to make it work—by any means necessary. https://metarationality.com/rational-reference The National Omelet Registry - Rationalism implicitly or explicitly assumes that every object in the universe has a unique ID number. https://metarationality.com/identity You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Approximation is a powerful technique, but is not applicable in all rational work, and so is not a good general theory of nebulosity. https://metarationality.com/approximation You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

"Shades of gray" is sometimes a good way to think about nebulosity—the world's inherent fuzziness—but not always. https://metarationality.com/vagueness You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Formal methods formally require impossibly precise definitions of terms. How do we use them effectively without that? https://metarationality.com/definition You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Reduction is a powertool of rationality, but reductionism can't work as a general theory; most rationality is not reduction. https://metarationality.com/reductionism You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Formal rationality requires absolute truths, but those are rare in the eggplant-sized world. How do we do rationality without them? https://metarationality.com/sort-of-truth You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The world is everything that is the case: Aristotelian logic was mistaken both in details and overall conception, yet its key ideas survive in contemporary rationalism. https://metarationality.com/Aristotelian-logic Depends upon what the meaning of the word "is" is: Formal logic successfully addresses important defects in traditional, Aristotelian logic, but cannot deal with contextuality. https://metarationality.com/formal-logic The value of meaninglessness: Recognizing that some statements are neither true nor false was a major advance in early 20th-century rationalism. https://metarationality.com/meaninglessness "What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts? A Neo-Positivist Credo" by David Stove http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/wrongthoughts.html You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Early 20th-century logical positivism was the last serious rationalism. Better understandings of rationality learn from its mistakes. https://metarationality.com/logical-positivism You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Rationalism responds to its failures, in the face of nebulosity, by making more complicated formal theories. https://metarationality.com/rationalism-responses You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The beginning of Part One of In The Cells Of The Eggplant. The hope that systematic rationality can reliably provide certainty, understanding, and control fails when it encounters nebulosity. https://metarationality.com/rationalism Defining the subject matter: rationality, rationalism, reasonableness, and meta-rationality. https://metarationality.com/rationalism-definitions You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Why meta-rationality matters for progress: leveling up science, technology, and society, even as they are unraveling. https://metarationality.com/credibility-post-truth A structural overview of the meta-rationality book In The Cells Of The Eggplant. https://metarationality.com/structure You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Here's the second half of the interview with David Chapman in which we announced Fluidity Forum 2023. In the first half, we discussed Fluidity Forum, a gathering we're planning for 2023 about metamodernity, sense-making, rationalism, metarationality, thinking-about-thinking, a metarationality curriculum, civilizational redesign, internal family systems, developmental theory, erisology, social media algorithms, conflict resolution, psychology, consilience, comparative religion, secular meditation, legibility & many other topics common in this space. Many people asked me "what do half of those words mean?" I created a glossary. But there were a few terms I needed David Chapman's help with, such as the frame problem. Links mentioned in this episode: Fluidity Forum Glossary Rationalism Before The Sequences by Eric S Raymond The Bridge: Rationality to "Woo" by Evan McMullen on The Stoa The Liminal Web by Joe Lightfoot The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 by Peter Limberg of The Stoa

Rationality And Refrigerators: This book offers more sophisticated understanding of truth than both rationalist absolutism and postmodernist relativism. https://metarationality.com/refrigerator Clouds and eggplants: The relationship between nebulosity—the inherent fuzziness of the world—and rationality is a central concern of meta-rationality. https://metarationality.com/nebulosity You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Welcome to the first episode of narrating "In The Cells Of The Eggplant" by David Chapman. This begins season 2 of the Fluidity Audiobooks podcast. Is this book for you? How meta-rationality can level up your work in science, technology, and engineering. https://metarationality.com/introduction You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

In this interview with David Chapman, we discuss Fluidity Forum, a gathering we're planning for 2023. FluidityForum.org We'll also discuss two new events I've attended recently: Critical Rationalism Weekend in Philadelphia, and Vibecamp in Austin. The conversations that have started to excite me the most are intermediate scales between the individual & the world: - not-for-profit projects, activities & events, such as maker spaces, druid groves, science fiction conventions, local Burning Man events, open source software projects, Mastodon or Discord servers, board game/role playing groups, and Vibecamp - co-housing and intentional communities - scenes, where "scenius" emerges - subcultures & subsocieties Do those intermediate scales supply a path for personal change to bring about system change? When a small community implements a change that is un-scalable beyond its size, it's like a sand castle. The world's systems act like an ocean that soon washes it away. What can scale the local to the global, the temporary to the self-perpetuating? We also discuss this article by Hanzi Freinacht about the "3H" population: Hackers, Hipsters, and Hippies.

Here we are, listeners. We have concluded "Meaningness". These episodes have been narrating sections of Meaningness which were written during the narration of Meaningness And Time. The remainder of Meaningness has already aired. If you are new to the podcast, it picks up from here at the episode aired on Aug 4, 2021, titled "The Complete Stance". On our next episode, we will begin "In The Cells Of The Eggplant", by David Chapman, published at metarationality.com. An exciting milestone. Thank you for coming with me! Miserabilism tastes like nihilism: "Miserabilism" is the stance that everything is awful. It's confused with nihilism because both entail rage and depression. https://meaningness.com/miserabilism Nihilistic anxiety opens into play: Anxiety is a natural reaction to uncertainty. In nihilism, pervasive loss of meaning makes everything uncertain; existential angst is a response. https://meaningness.com/nihilism-anxiety Sartre's ghost and the corpse of God: Existentialism, a hopeful alternative to rigid meanings, makes wrong metaphysical assumptions, and cannot work. It collapses inevitably into nihilism. https://meaningness.com/existentialism-muddled-middle You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

This concludes the section on the varieties of nihilistic special meaning. Thanks to Sarah Elkins and Bruce Webber for performing roles in this episode's scripted section! No meaning without proof - A stubborn nihilist can always just refuse to admit that anything is meaningful. https://meaningness.com/no-proof-of-meaning Scientific rationality has proven: everything is meaningless - An event everyone thinks they remember, but never happened. Science disproved religious theories of meaning, but not meaning itself. https://meaningness.com/science-proves-meaninglessness No meaning from the Big Bang - Everything was meaningless at the moment of the Big Bang. What could add meaning after that? https://meaningness.com/no-meaning-from-big-bang No meaning for mortals - Your future death does not make your present meaningless. https://meaningness.com/no-meaning-for-corpses You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

No meaning without justification - The rationalist theory of justified action leads to nihilism. Understand your activity as a vivid, variegated landscape instead. https://meaningness.com/no-meaning-without-justification No meaning of life as a whole - Misunderstanding "a life" as an object leads to the complaint that, although meanings exist, life is meaningless overall. https://meaningness.com/no-meaning-of-life-overall Not enough meaning - Perception that life is not meaningful enough may involve an unrealistic standard; or ways of increasing meaningfulness may help. https://meaningness.com/not-enough-meaning You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

We pick up where we left off in the Nihilism chapter of the book "Meaningness", with additional pages written by the author during the narration of "Meaningness And Time". No objective meaning: While the meaning of "objective" is nebulous, learning to relate to meaningness more objectively is possible and worthwhile. https://meaningness.com/no-objective-meaning Some other varieties of objectivity: Nihilistic claims about subjectivity, inherent meaning, universal meaning, and scientific objectivity do not hold up. https://meaningness.com/objectivity-other-varieties You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

We return to the book "Meaningness" for the conclusion of the Eternalism chapter. I delayed this episode until now in case David Chapman wrote more, or revised them, and no longer considered them unfinished. It's worthwhile just as it is, and I have formatted all these short pages as if they were sections in one page. Eternalist Ploys: Ploys—ways of thinking, feeling, talking, and acting—which stabilize eternalism; and antidotes to use against them. https://meaningness.com/eternalist-ploys Imposing fixed meanings: Forcing fixed meanings on experience always eventually results in unpleasant shocks when reality refuses to conform to your pre-determined categories. https://meaningness.com/imposing-fixed-meanings Smearing meaning all over everything: Monist eternalism—the New Age and SBNR, for example—say everything is meaningful, but leaves vague what the meanings are. https://meaningness.com/smearing-meaning Magical thinking: Hallucinating causal connections is powerfully synergistic with eternalism. https://meaningness.com/magical-thinking Hope: Hope is harmful in devaluing the present and shifting attention to imaginary futures that may never exist. https://meaningness.com/hope Pretending: Eternalist religions and political systems are always partly make-believe, like children playing at being pirates. https://meaningness.com/pretending Colluding for eternalism: Because eternalist delusion is so desirable, we collude to maintain it. To save each other from nihilism, we support each other in not-seeing nebulosity. https://meaningness.com/collusion Hiding from nebulosity: Physically avoiding ambiguous situations and information. https://meaningness.com/hiding-from-nebulosity Kitsch and naïveté: The denial of the possibility of meaninglessness leads to willfully idiotic sentimentality. https://meaningness.com/kitsch Armed & armored eternalism: When nebulosity becomes obvious, eternalism fails to fit reality. You can armor yourself against evidence, and arm yourself to destroy it. https://meaningness.com/armed-eternalism Faith: Privileging faith over experience is an eternalist ploy for blinding yourself to signs of nebulosity. https://meaningness.com/faith Thought suppression: Maintaining faith in non-existent meanings. It leads to deliberate stupidity, inability to express oneself, and inaction. https://meaningness.com/thought-suppression Bargaining and recommitment: When eternalism lets you down, you are tempted to make a bargain with it. Eternalism will behave itself better, and in return you renew your faith in it. https://meaningness.com/recommitment Wistful certainty: The thought that there must exist whatever it takes to make eternalism seem to work. https://meaningness.com/wistful-certainty Faithful bafflement: Maintaining the eternalist stance that remains committed but begins to doubt. https://meaningness.com/faithful-bafflement Mystification: Using thoughts as a weapon against authentic thinking, to create glib, bogus metaphysical explanations that sweep meaninglessness under the rug. https://meaningness.com/mystification Rehearsing the horrors of nihilism: Reminding yourself and others of how bad nihilism is can help maintain the eternalist stance. This is the hellfire and brimstone of eternalist preaching. https://meaningness.com/rehearsing-nihilist-horror Purification: An obsessive focus for dualist eternalism mobilizes emotions of disgust, guilt, shame, and self-righteous anger. https://meaningness.com/purity Fortress eternalism: In the face of undeserved suffering, is difficult not to fall into the stance that most things are God's will, but not the horrible bits. https://meaningness.com/fortress-eternalism On next week's episode, we return to the Nihilism chapter of Meaningness: Objectivity. You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The epilogue of "The Cofounders", discussing metarationality in organizational management. https://meaningness.com/cofounders-in-relationship This concludes "Meaningness And Time". The next episodes will return to "Meaningness" to narrate material David Chapman has written in the interim. You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

This episode contains the second and final part of my most recent interview with David Chapman. This one is one hour long. In part 1, we discussed a phrase he has used several times in "Meaningness And Time": secretly pretending to believe. In this part, we apply the approach from his books to controversial issues, including how different factions process the concept of gender transition. We also discuss the nature of the false claims that the votes in the 2020 US Presidential election were not reflected in the outcome. I mentioned this article by Freddie deBoer about "critique drift": https://inthesetimes.com/article/nyu-grad-students-win-contract You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The path from professionalism to a deliberately-developmental relationship: a tale of startup cofounders. https://meaningness.com/cofounders-in-relationship Be prepared before you begin: this episode is an hour and twenty minutes long. Thanks to Jasmine Ren for performing the part of Prithi. You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

In this episode, I interview David Chapman about a phrase he has used several times in "Meaningness And Time": secretly pretending to believe. This is part 1. You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Fluidity addresses the atomization of culture, society, and self with ships that sail the sea of meaning: collaborative, improvised, intimate, and playful. https://meaningness.com/fluidity-preview Desiderata for any future mode of meaningness - A positive and realistic vision for the future of society, culture, and self, drawing lessons from recent history. https://meaningness.com/fluidity-desiderata The Terra Ignota series of science fiction novels by Ada Palmer, which illustrates one vision of the fluid mode of social organization: https://us.macmillan.com/series/terraignota You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The global internet atomizes cultures, societies, and selves into tiny brilliant shards. Meaning has lost context and coherence. Now what? https://meaningness.com/atomized-mode Cultural atomization—the widespread loss of conceptual coherence—has made serious intellectual work much more difficult in the twenty-teens. https://meaningness.com/thinking-after-atomization If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

"Archipelago" is a political model in which everyone can choose what social system to live in. It's impractical, but points to better solutions. https://meaningness.com/archipelago-politics In this episode, I narrate the blog post "Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism" by Scott Alexander, with his permission. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/ If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Subcultures: the diversity of meaning - The subcultural era (1975-2000) recognized the diversity of meanings, and provided a new type of supportive, voluntary social group. https://meaningness.com/subcultures Subcultures: meanings at play - With no responsibility to justify universal norms, or for solving social problems, subcultures were freed to play with meanings. https://meaningness.com/subcultural-culture Subsocieties: urban tribes - Subsocieties, close-knit social groups organized around subsocieties: a possible model for positive future social oganization. https://meaningness.com/subsocieties Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution - How muggles and sociopaths invade and undermine creative subcultures; and how to stop them. https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

At root, the culture war is not about abortion, gay marriage, or marijuana. It is about shared misunderstandings of the nature of meaning. https://meaningness.com/completing-countercultures You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The culture war, political polarization, Baby Boomer bafflement: the unending zombie slugfest pairing the two countercultures of the 1960s-80s. https://meaningness.com/counterculture-war "Five Case Studies In Politicization", by Scott Alexander. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/10/16/five-case-studies-on-politicization/ "The Toxoplasma of Rage", also by Scott Alexander. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The hippie and Moral Majority movements both developed broad, deep cultures, with innovative approaches to every aspect of life, from music to dentistry. https://meaningness.com/countercultural-culture Failure to find new foundations for meaning, to recognize diversity, to provide community, and to transcend opposition: all doomed counterculturalism. https://meaningness.com/countercultures-fail An atomized masterpiece by DJ Lobsterdust, "Queen Vs Satan, featuring pastor Gary G., in: It's Fun To Smoke Dust". https://youtu.be/pdXek5d2ocw You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The Religious Right and New Age Left both promoted time-distorting meta-myths—imaginary past golden ages and implausible future utopias—to hide their defects. https://meaningness.com/counterculture-history-myths Fundamentalism is not traditional; it is a modern, countercultural movement, opposed to tradition and to post-modernity. https://meaningness.com/fundamentalism-countercultural-modernism This references David Chapman's essay on another site, "Ritual Vs Mentalism": https://vividness.live/ritual-vs-mentalism You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

In the 1960s-80s, American politics shifted from economic to sacredness issues. This damaged public discourse, but created a new two-track class system. https://meaningness.com/political-left-right-rotated You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The 1960s-80s countercultures dissolved the boundaries between self and society, ethical and political—setting us up for decades of culture war. You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The 1960s-80s countercultures abandoned rationality because they believed it negated all meaning. They were wrong. Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

How—and why!—countercultures sought to reform psychologies and polities: to counteract alienation, anxiety, and anomie. Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The hippie counterculture was structurally and functionally similar to the Moral Majority Christian Right counterculture a decade later. https://meaningness.com/monism-dualism-countercultures Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Taking a break from narrating "Meaningness And Time" to give you a standalone essay by the author, David Chapman, which I call the Bridge essay. It will be helpful in our next few episodes, in which "Meaningness And Time" describes the counter-cultures' renegotiation of the relationship between self and society. The Bridge essay provides the urgency behind this entire audiobook podcast, and the reason I titled the podcast "Fluidity". When I first read it in 2020, that was the moment I decided I wanted to narrate David Chapman's work on my podcast. https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge The Bridge essay references Chapman's summary of Robert Kegan's framework of adult cognitive development, which I narrated on this episode: https://fluidity.libsyn.com/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence Original text of Chapman's summary of Kegan here: https://vividness.live/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence Yesterday I encouraged David Chapman to link from the Bridge essay to an enlightening recent article by John Nerst on his blog Everything Studies (later published in Aero Magazine) clarifying the difference between postmodernism and "pseudo-pomo": https://areomagazine.com/2018/06/30/postmodernism-vs-the-pomo-oid-cluster/ Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

The hippies and the Moral Majority both tried to rescue systematic eternalism—and failed. We live amongst their wreckage. https://meaningness.com/countercultures Countercultures defined as new, alternative, universalist, eternalist, anti-rational systems: there were two in the late 20th century. https://meaningness.com/counterculture-definition If you want to support this podcast, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Modernity was built on certainty in science and mathematics. That was revealed as delusional during the early 20th century. An hour-long episode! For many of my acquaintance, this is an important entry point into Chapman's work, tying together Meaningness And Time with his other book In The Cells Of The Eggplant. It's also the most recent page he's written. https://meaningness.com/collapse-of-rational-certainty If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

How and why modernity failed. All systems of meaning—religious, political, artistic, psychological—began to fall apart. Nihilism seemed the only alternative. https://meaningness.com/systems-crisis-breakdown If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Ideological time-distortion strategies are highly effective in propaganda. The Victorian age and the twentieth century gave us many new things that were supposedly ancient. These include: - British royal coronation ceremonies. - kilts and almost the entire Scottish national identity. - almost all of the history of Buddhism. - and don't get us started on Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is a fun episode. https://meaningness.com/invented-traditions-and-timeworn-futures You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.

Systems of society, culture, and the self were the foundation of the modern world. Their glories have passed. https://meaningness.com/systematic-mode You can support the podcast and get episodes a week early, by supporting the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/fluidityaudiobooks If you like the show, consider buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattarnold Original music by Kevin MacLeod. This podcast is under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 License.