Unmaking Sense

Episode 10.02: The Weak Interaction as an example the need to unmake our sense of what makes sense.

The weak interaction is used as an example of how our conventional understanding of what makes sense may not be adequate despite being the most natural way we have emerged and evolved to make sense of the world. Note that I am not a physicist and these episodes should not be regarded as a reliable guide to particle physics; they are, rather, examples of how ideas from other fields can trigger philosophical thoughts.

Episode 10.01: Stumbling towards a new way of making sense of life with a bit of help from physics.

A veritable smorgasbord of ideas in search of coherence as we try to piece together the contents of over 375 episodes aided and abetted by some inept readings in particle physics, unlikely as it may seem.

Episode 9.33: Truth as representational fiction as exemplified by “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”.

If truth is an optimally effective fiction which points us to what we do best to attend to, listen to, act on, live by and believe, then it tells us something very important about language and all other forms of representation: that they are just ways to enable us to think and talk about things that matter to us including life, death and our place in the universe.

Episode 9.32: Isn’t another deflationary account of truth the very last thing we need right now?

Why treating truth as if it is established eternally and so can be relied upon to speak for itself and fight its own battles is the real enemy and danger, not a remaking of our sense of truth that forces us to create and fight for it as what we believe is best for us.

Episode 9.31: The true meaning of a text doesn’t lie in the intention of its author but our reading.

We explore how the truth does not lie in the past and cannot reside permanently in the present. Neither should we expect to find it in some final form in the future. Implications for writing, reading and interpretation.

Episode 9.30: An experiment in learning to live with a compound, complex, pluralist view of truth.

We modify the mountain summit metaphor because it encourages us to think that it is possible to find a single place that incorporates all the very best positions it is possible to adopt. It isn’t: to embrace the rich diversity of the world and life we have to be ready to be large, a multitude, and to relate to others, the world, truth and ourselves out of that rich plurality and diversity.

Episode 9.29: Truth as a combination of different aspects that may include contradictions.

Changing our Q from quantum theory, we argue for a view of truth in which it is a combination of different aspects different views of the world which may include those that are incompatible or even contradictory. When we make up our minds as societies so often demands that we do, we are forced to select one from a multitude of possibilities, when it might well be in our better interests to remain in a mixed state Where we hold many different and even contradictory views at once. Society doesn’t like this, because it means that we are much harder to place, and therefore our allegiances and our tribal loyalties are much harder to ascertain; but society is always richer when it is more diverse, and the view of truth advocated here leads naturally to such diversity.

Episode 9.28: Why do we take up unequivocal positions as society often demands? Truth and plurality.

Society loves us to make up our minds on things, and to stand unequivocally in favour of or against some of the options that are available. We talked about this in episode 26. But should we comply? What does single-minded dedication to one thing do that multiple-minded, equivocal, nuanced dedication to the same thing fails to do? What is it about our devotion to a writer, a composer, a cause, a sport, a team, or a tribe that has such power to command our loyalty? And should we allow it to do so?

Episode 9.27: Under what circumstances might we abandon a comfortable life to seek a better one?

We consider again the metaphor of the mountain summit, and leaving it to try to climb one even higher. Why might we do so? When is it right to do so? How do we assess our situation in order to make such a decision?

Episode 9.26: Truth, integrity and consistency; their connections or not.

Integrity, wholeness, consistency and truth: their relationship or lack of it.