Pill Pod 79 - Kumbaya Posthumanism (Exclusive)
Added 2022-05-11 23:46:33 +0000 UTCWe venture into the weeds of ignorance, science, and anthropomorphism, and not even immuno-responses can stop us (sorry, this would have been out earlier but Covid's floored me since Saturday).
We look at posthumanism a la Francesca Ferrando (Philosophical Posthumanism), Donna Haraway (Staying with the Trouble), and James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis (The Gaia Hypothesis).
Comments
On the subject of we can't understand how trees think, do trees even think, etc., that seems to at least on a some level be related to the concept of Dao, or lived experience of interbeing. I.e. the idea that everything else, except the human lost in his scattered yet self centered thought, is thinking and acting with one harmonious mind or network of interlocking but not necessarily interpenetrating minds/activities/energies. Life eating life, shit eating shit, in great harmony and seamless communication which for the most part is invisible to our perception because of our historical, humanistic preconceptions. Communication that in a way transcends our current perception of direct, observable communication, like the wasp and orchid, something more "inherent" or at the core. Can we turn the tables and ask whether it's only us who has lost the ability to communicate? Any "serious" contemporary philosophy take up this mantel (sorry, I'm an amateur here, this is my "hobby" not profession or education)? Isn't it humanist to think we are the pinnacle and everything else is unintelligent and dumb, when all it usually takes is for me to silently watch my garden for 15 minutes, observing all the complex activity occur seemingly with ease, watching the birds play in the bath, to at least entertain that we're the only thing struggling to get along because we fail to communicate.
ageOfBumFires
2022-07-16 15:38:50 +0000 UTCI've listened to every pillpod and this one is up there for me! I feel bad about saying it for some reason but I think I prefer the pod split into pills and Eric episodes and Victor and Matt episodes.
Kyle Brown
2022-06-02 15:59:27 +0000 UTCCary Wolfe is a good intro for the eco bent posthumanism, and there is a good intro to technologogical posthumanism in "posthumanism" by Pramod Nayar although it may be a little out of date. Bernard Stiegler's "technics and time" is a main text of technoposthum although he never uses the term, but I'd start there if you want something harder that is explicitly in philosophy... Which I say because a lot of this stuff falls into various sub-disciplines of the humanities
Plastic Pills
2022-05-18 18:53:29 +0000 UTCCan we get the (good) posthumanism reading list 😮
Eli
2022-05-18 13:40:49 +0000 UTCYou should check it out, with the exception of Havelock, all the authors mentioned in the ep description are women. Margulis wrote 4+ books on symbiogenesis
Plastic Pills
2022-05-18 07:24:48 +0000 UTCseems all ur references r men. haraway being the exception. i think all us guys need to look at how exclusively male our referenced thinker pools are and do a lot better w inclusion of female and trans theorists if we are seemingly preaching for change. not bc of PC ness, btw. If we don’t include them, who will? what the 1970s had over us. now it seems all foreclosed and cynical. evolved back to the future.
Zachary Manenti
2022-05-17 23:35:38 +0000 UTCSteven "philosophy is dead" Hawking worried about cascading climate change pushing "...Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees [C], and raining sulphuric acid.” The possibility of which raises the question: should life on Earth bother existing at all? Any decisive answer is a value judgement, but to answer affirmatively is to value increasing complexity. From there it's only a small step to values such as further spreading education (information systems are already pushing towards this) and egalitarianism to increase the potential for complexity of abstract systems. And that project relies on survival, so systems gain value if life on Earth's existence depends on them. Arbitrarily following trajectories is kind of Transhumanist but the alternatives are reckless Accelerationism or going all out Bartleby, and they could be the paths that truly put all known life in the hands of Bezos & Musk
Alex B
2022-05-17 22:10:25 +0000 UTCThis is my jam and bread, thank you Erik and Pills. I find myself learning from media how to garden, forage herbs, compost, etc., and I have noticed a trait: most of these learning presenters have a way of personifying the "natural" world. On a shared emotion level, I can relent and understand their sentiment. But on an ontological level, I sense them smuggling in assumptions that leave me detached from their understanding. Very few presenters have the moxie or rigor or starkness to lay out the characteristics of biological systems without needing to resort to a "Mother Earth" identification nor a militant reductionist framework. Or as y'all mention, we should not be so quick to claim to "hear" what a forest wants. I have a few readings that currently bring me to a viewpoint of "Green Nihilism" (LOL, another nihilism) in almost an anarchic sense. Your discussion has washed away the feel-good messages of these garden YouTubers and reminded me of a richer web of stories to talk about with biology/ecology.
CZO
2022-05-17 05:53:00 +0000 UTC'Turning and turning in the widening gyre...' (Yeats) of the culture wars. You may have already read this paper but it's very relevant to your most interesting conversation. Thanks. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346370497_Gaia_Theory_Between_Autopoiesis_and_Sympoiesis
Steve B
2022-05-14 06:45:20 +0000 UTCAlso what role does myth/belief play in maintaining systems and how do these develop? Just kinda thinking about the sorts of things that would be helpful to anti-capitalists who want an applied theory that can help them achieve their political goals. Be our anti-Dugin. :P
Fiachra O Raghallaigh
2022-05-12 18:04:43 +0000 UTCHope you're feeling better btw!
anacidcommie
2022-05-12 17:59:33 +0000 UTCOnce again thanks for the post-humanism . On flat ontology Levi Bryant “Flat ontology is a thesis about what is and how things are, not a thesis about values and worth. It is not making the claim that a flea is as valuable as a human being.” https://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2020/02/17/flat-ontology-questions-and-assemblages/#more-9398 Levi Bryant’s ‘Democracy of Objects’ draws heavily on Luhmann’s Systems Theory to create what he calls operationally closed objects. Given Bryant’s central role in creating some of the neologisms central to these discussions (OOO, flat ontology), his take on Autopoiesis, his efforts to relocate a ‘wilderness’ as always, already posthuman might he be worth a look before moving on? Great to hear Margulis entering the discussion and the State politics of neoDarwinism. Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid: A factor of evolution” warrants a mention. Is there a potential discussion around evolution and the State? Darwin vs Spencer; Watson and Crick and Eugenics/racism and; Dawkins and fuckwit humanism; is the concept of the gene (heredity) all too human?
Peter Haggar
2022-05-12 17:54:48 +0000 UTCCan we imagine a forest enjoying? Do trees have jouissance? Is a tree crotch actually a point of sexual pleasure? And more on the sequel to kumbaya posthumanism
Zack Klug
2022-05-12 17:12:10 +0000 UTCThis was well worth the wait. Something I'd love to see you guys explore is the political implications of structural couplings, and how a knowledge of systems theory might be used to achieve progressive political change. Are there any examples from the past 20 years of political movements that demonstrated a good understanding of the state as a system and its environment, and used this to achieve its goals effectively? Thinking about how the US right-wing managed to get Roe v. Wade overturned* but there might be other examples. *Yes, I know it's not official yet - but even if they back down at the last minute, which I doubt, I think it is amazing that the right have gotten so close to victory at a time when popular opinion is against them.
Fiachra O Raghallaigh
2022-05-12 16:50:43 +0000 UTCIsn't that initial rejection of a radically new hypothesis in the scientific world in line with what Kuhn said about the formation of scientific paradigms? I love this series, one of your very best, Pills. I don't get how the politically minded libs don't understand the significant implications systems theory has on politics - or rather, I don't think they want to recognise it because it would cause to much cognitive dissonance with their deeply held liberal beliefs. Systems theory is a great counter to the ideology of rugged individualism, because it tells people that actually your current state in terms of class (or whatever social hierarchy you want to look at) is not your fault and not within your power at all, but the fault of a system (or series of coupled systems) that have determined your life and available choices from before you were even conceived. Systems theory also undermines the humanism that justifies humans doing whatever they want to with nature like they're somehow above and not a part of it, and that it's continued exploitation will not come back to bite us in the ass. Fight nights would be cool, definitely would love some Sartre or Althusser vs the philosophers who became disillusioned with the French communist party post '68.
anacidcommie
2022-05-12 16:37:26 +0000 UTCyay - been waiting for your hot takes on these
hoppi
2022-05-12 07:04:22 +0000 UTCCan we get an Einstein/ Bergson fight night? Could be cool lmao.
Socialswine
2022-05-12 05:35:02 +0000 UTCListening to a lot of Graham Harman who lives Lyn Margulis and James Lovelock so pumped to hear your thoughts!
Socialswine
2022-05-12 05:34:20 +0000 UTCThanks for this, I needed it exactly right now (yes I understand the irony, but I did not need it then and I am grateful to have it now and fresh)
Matthew Theisen
2022-05-12 00:53:05 +0000 UTCmeant to ask this last week but can we do a luhmann v habermas fight night. those episodes were fun
agrippa
2022-05-11 23:48:57 +0000 UTC
