Fluidity

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.