by Karen Wong
A thoughtful discussion about the main themes of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, including the idea that he was attempting to baptize the modern imagination and retrain the way we think. The consequences of the initial lie in the garden. The trilogy as a presentation of un-fallenness. An exploration of the portrayal of masculinity and femininity in the trilogy. The significance of attentive listening in relation to obedience, citing examples from the Bible. A caution against the dangers of selective hearing in religious language and structure. The complex interplay between worldview, perception, attention, and obedience in C.S. Lewis's works, drawing on examples from his books and other stories. Lewis's portrayal of corruption and spiritual realities in "That Hideous Strength," analyzing the characters and their actions as examples of the connection between political and spiritual corruption. The inspiration for the angels in the novel and how Lewis drew from Dionysius the Areopagite's "Celestial Hierarchy" and Greek mythology. Finally, Ted discussed the importance of daily obedience and faithfulness, emphasizing the need for gratitude and daily acts of obedience in saving the world. Mentions: J R R Tolkien George MacDonald's Phantastes Lewis's other books, The Great Divorce and The Chronicles of Narnia Michael Ward's book, Planet Narnia Maximus the Confessor
Jackson Pitts is a Condensed Matter Physicist and an Artist. He and Karen discuss the bottom up approach, the object, background, foreground, the move towards freedom and entropy, including its destructive and creative side. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and discussion of his involvement with the space station 05:00 Explaining Condensed Matter Physics and Crystal Structures 15:45 A description of the many body problem 18:45 Reductionism and Constructivism in Physics 22:25 Approaches to Painting 27:50 Discussion on the Anomalies of Painting 32:00 Developing a Style 37:00 Exploring the Relationship Between Figure and Background 43:15 What is worth calling an object? 52:20 A discussion of Jack’s doctoral dissertation 55:00 Exploring Emergent Phenomena and Entropy in Physics Discussion on Quantum Mechanics and Interpretations 56:00 Q-bism 1:05:00 The Implications of Determinism 1:17:00 Discussion on Wolfram's theory of fundamental physics and the uniqueness of Emes The video on qbism from which we watched a clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSqDMtHoaT0&t=1s The video on Q-bism and Christopher Fuchs: https://youtu.be/nSqDMtHoaT0 Wolfram's Working Session, starting around 1:20:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzM3jM7Dtds&t=4976s Sharon Glotzer's research on particles forming crystalline structures with entropy alone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et5KcmdCXRk&t=1346s For a quick summary of Wolfram's theory by Mark Jeffery, complete with easy to digest animations: https://lasttheory.com/channel/ Scroll down for a list of the videos from first to last If you’re interested in my art, and my process, here is a video with some explanation. Jack’s art: http://jacksonpitts.net/watercolors You can navigate from this page to his work in other media. https://youtu.be/f3mSQLDycgw My website: https://karenwongart.com
Karen met Olena at the Chino Conference on the Quest for a Spiritual Home and here they talk about Olena's background and her participation in TLC.Timestamps00:00 Intro13:27 Karen and Olena discuss Jordan Peterson's teachings on the Bible and their impact on faith. 25:45 Discussion on structured vs unstructured thinking and the tension between masculine and feminine perspectives. 32:26 Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energies 43:56 "The Tract Illustration" 45:51 Discussion on Matthew Pageau’s book, The Language of Creation 48:20 Software Engineering and Language as fundamental 58:45 The Limits of Knowledge and Determinism 1:01:52 Cultivating Humility and Empathy 1:10:28 The Healing Power of Beauty and Art
Karen met Allyn Engle at the Chino "Quest for a Spiritual Home" conference. He is a comedian and writer working in advertising in New York City. Timestamps: 00:00. Introduction and Setting the Stage 09:29 Allyn Engle's Childhood and College Experience 15:25 The "dream" and the decision to change his life 28:35 The Importance of Traditions and Community 39:25 The "dawning" of evil and the Supernatural Experience 44:00 Finding the Meta Goal 50:50 Humbling oneself to pursue higher principles Faith RX and Experiences with Church Communities 59:25 Importance of Community and Participation 1:09:00 This Little Corner isn't enough for full communion Humble yourself 1:15:30 Understanding true identity The Power of Writing and Creativity
Ted Stiritz returns to discuss Reality, Knowledge, Hierarchy, Narrative in Daniel Toma, part 2. This is also a YouTube video and timestamps are at the link:https://youtu.be/31IV0iNjUK8
I had the great opportunity to meet Sevilla of A Quality Existence during the Quest for a Spiritual Home conference in Chino Hills, California. Here, we get together and talk about what were for us, the highlights of the weekend.
Kendelle is an artist in the story department of an animation studio. We discuss her career, her work as a storyboard artist and the overlap of the principles of art and narrative in the making of compelling stories. Links discussed follow the time stamps. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 01:00 Kendelle's experience at the Chino Estuary conference 08:20 The Intersection of Storytelling and Internet Culture 16:00 This little corner of the internet 20:00 Paul VanderKlay causes the whole world to settle down 20:45 The Artistic Process and Limitations 24:15 The perspective of the grand story Discovering Justin Wells and his series on narrative and plot 29:30 Collaborative Filmmaking Process 35:00 The Process of Creating Animated Films 55:00 Everything has relationship The Importance of Story Structure and Relationship in Film and Art 1:01:00 How art shows up in science and science shows up in art. Discussion on Art and Synthesis of Disciplines If you're interested in more information about the Bastions of Beauty, make a comment and I'll get you the appropriate contact information.
Nolan joins again for another romp through the space of ideas. Hold on. It's a wild ride.
Nolan Manteufel is an electrical engineer with interesting ideas about how the world works. Links mentioned by Nolan follow the notes. How did the ancients take what they could see so clearly and put it in a story so that the "coding" could be protected over time" Can we "over analyze" or "under analyze"? What is the "correct" amount of analysis? The proper "level" of analysis? The games we play can actually have the structure of generalized formulas. Every story we tell (or game we play) about a system seems to have a source potential, a conductor and a flow through the conductor because of the source. This is the story of electricity and magnetism, at least since Ohm. Another way to see the same story would be that Knowledge is a source, energy/matter/space/time is a conductor, and emotional state(s) equals flow. Another permutation might be that Ideas x real space + emotion space. The circular notion of identity. Force = Ability x Ambition (If my ambition to do something is zero, my force is zero no matter how much ability I might have to accomplish the task. Note from Nolan: "Hans Camenzind is the electrical engineer that i mentioned during our conversation. He's a recent historical character that i admire. He also wrote a book on religion, but i don't remember reading it. Much Ado About Almost Nothing, http://www.historyofelectronics.com/Much-Ado-About-Almost-Nothing.pdf Designing Analog Chips, http://www.designinganalogchips.com/ Another living hero of mine is Forrest Mims III. His books inspired my love of electronics. Also, he was 50% partner in the venture that created the opportunity that inspired Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard! The stories that can be told are crazy."
Glen and Karen discuss how language and computation are tied together, that multiple languages can be used to create a symphony of choices to express something logically and emotionally. Links follow timestamps. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:40 The halting problem, Joscha Bach on Godel’s incompleteness theorem, and the connection between language and computation. 04:24 “There is no deeper notion of truth than proof.” Joscha Bach Patterns 06:20 “There. Is a covenant between Truth and Language.” 15:33 Euclid’s fifth postulate is not decidable Decidability and the equivalence of the halting problem to other problems. Wolfram’s computational irreducibility Rule 110 in cellular automata. 22:30 The concept of computation relates to heuristic rule sets. Computation as a physical process that can be based on formal languages or logic, probabilities, or heuristic rule sets. Example: a recipe. 26:00 Computation is a sequence of choices guided by a set of rules. Undecidability. Computational Systems 39:26 Language, an alphabet of symbols, Russell's Paradox, Incompleteness Theorem, a project to reduce mathematics to a formal system, doomed to failure with Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. Russell and Whitehead left mathematics and became philosophers. Glen also explains the Barber Paradox, which is related to Russell's Paradox, and how it can be solved by adding new rules. 45:46 The concept of truth relates to language. Glen suggests that truth can be determined by stepping outside of the system and asking questions, Language is a key factor in our ability to ask questions and understand truth. Truth is not just a statement about math and formal systems, but also about people and their ability to ask questions. 56:25 The problem with a lock is that it needs an outside agent. Computation is a group phenomena. Can’t analyze a computational system in isolation. Exploring the Relationship Between Computation, Consciousness, and Agency Alignment of AI/LLM to humans1:07:09 Archetypes are a proof in a non-formal language, a story with a punch line. The Relationship Between Language, Computation, and Truth. Truth can be found in both formal and non-formal languages. The concept of alignment, and how large language models can be hacked by flooding the learning set with false statements. 1:16:50 A symphony of choices. Exploring the Possibility of Creating a Symphony of languages to express emotional joy. Could this be used to solve the alignment problem in Artificial Intelligence?Interact with Glen on Twitter, @wildiris Up and Atom on The Halting Problem: https://youtu.be/t37GQgUPa6k The three body problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20general%20closed,repeating%2C%20except%20in%20special%20cases Undecidability, Part I: https://youtu.be/nsZsd5qtbo4 Part 2: https://youtu.be/FK3kifY-geM Part 3: https://youtu.be/lLWnd6-vSGo Joscha Bach on TOE, start at 58:03: https://youtu.be/bhSlYfVtgww Michael Levin, Richard Watson, Mark Solms, 30:00 to 50:00 https://youtu.be/gjArtj5PIU8