When I ask most Buddhist teachers about the most pressing spiritual question for me — the fate of the soul after death — they’ll tell me that the soul is an illusion.
Category: Philosophy
What’s in a Name (And What’s Out)?: Completing the Peripheral in Multiple Ways
Naming is an amateur verbal art form, poised between the free-flowing inclusivity of an improv class and a tragic neurotic obsession with every unuttered sentiment.
Hot, Lame & Shamanic: Developing a Good Conscience about Intelligent Ambivalence
Both/and, neither/nor, all & none of the above—in a mediascape designed to hack our dopamine reward systems, how do we practice the complexity of keeping cool?
Notes from a Stark Raving Lunatic
Today I condensed the universe into a ball / A small, red ball that I could pick up and bounce / And balance on my head / And shove my hand through
Thoughts, Prayers, and Other Useless Things: What Good is the Moral High Ground, Anyway?
“Out beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” While there’s nothing of Rumi in this essay, this poem may be an apt introduction.
Is People Really Evolving?
Bodies of light? Telepathy? Breathing underwater? Exciting ideas from sci-fi & free range mysticism suggest extraordinary physical mutations. Why not? Questioning the assumptions of various evolutionary worldviews…
What Kind of Smart Is It?—Speculative Hurdles Towards Evaluating Artificial General Intelligence
If, as William Burroughs proposed, language is an alien virus—then what are LLMs? What is the potential for AI consciousness, given what we know about life?
Freedom: Craving It and Reaching Beyond It
I dream about a dimension beyond this one: a realm that includes none of the limitations I despise. This is what Moshiach—a true messianic age—would mean to me.
Being At Sea
History is a kind of dream. The dead are always with us. The more our culture melts away, the more we cling to a sense of solidity. Art tells us we are at sea.
We are Ghosts. This is Hades.
Has the world already ended? Are we dead? Neither literally nor metaphorically, this essay argues that we have become spectral beings in our image of the world.
On Paradox
“And what do you know about paradox?” Grolier asked his younger sister, Mailka. “The harmony of opposites? But I still don’t know what that m… means.”
The Opening of the Records
A virgin will rebuild from ash the burning library at Alexandria. She will not take any prisoners. Her large eyes will be tests that you must pass. For a third time will the Argo sail, outperforming Voyager One. You will learn of how this ship is not different from your body. It will move beyond the speed of light.
How Do We Speak from Wholeness?
Language has served as a way to bridge a perceived gap between consciousnesses who believe themselves to be separate. By another reckoning, language has served as a crutch to help us hobble through the woundedness of feeling separate.
Save the Date…and Call for Submissions: Jean Gebser Society annual conference 2023
Mark your calendar for this sure to be stellar upcoming event (offered online and in person); and a call for papers that look at various ways of expressing integrality, drawing on of the work of Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, or other “integral” thinkers.
Quarantine Notes
A collection of aphorisms by a contemporary adept of the form, these bite-size poems reflect on the nature of art, wisdom, love, technology, and spirituality through a modern and yet timeless lens.
Sri Aurobindo Reading Circles
Infinite Conversations has been pursuing an extended reading program for Sri Aurobindo’s writings for several years now. Here is an update on our progress, with information on how you can participate…
Consciously Evolving Language, with Lisa Maroski
Starts Sept 8: an exploration of how we can make changes to the structure of our language that reflect and catalyze a planetary paradigm shift towards always-already connectedness…
Synthesis of Yoga Practicum
An open-ended reading and discussion of Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga, with a virtual meeting every 2nd and 4th Wednesday until the book is fully read.
Bateson Reading Group
We will be reading one of the 20th Century’s seminal works, the collection of essays by Gregory Bateson assembled in the book called Steps to an Ecology of Mind, and, as a counterpoint, essays and poems by his daughter Nora Bateson under the title Small Arcs of Larger Circles.
Journey to Supermind
The Life Divine is one of the great spiritual works of the 20th century, if not all time. It presents Indian/Integral philosopher, poet, and yogi Sri Aurobindo’s conception of the origin, structure, and destiny of creation, from the primordia …
The Minor Gesture
Erin Manning is a friend and colleague who lives in Montreal and heads up the SenseLab at Concordia University. Her book Relationscapes—Movement, Art, Philosophy profoundly influenced my own work at the intersection between the sciences and t …
Spheres Reading Group
We are reading all three volumes of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s Spheres trilogy: Bubbles, Globes, and Foam. The live-recorded conversations for Bubbles took place between April and August, 2017, and the conversations for Globes took place between October 2017 and May 2018. However, the conversation continues in our forum. A reading schedule for Foam is yet to be determined.
Winter of Origins
This was the second reading of Readers Underground (then #litgeeks). The conversation continues in our forum.In a world racked by vast inequality, climate change, and political upheaval, Gebser’s work so aptly points out that these problems are a …
Spheres Reading GroupBubbles, by Peter Sloterdijk – Conversation 9
#9 of 9 live conversations on Peter Sloterdijk’s Bubbles. Topics: Ch. 8, “Closer to Me Than I Am Myself – A Theological Preparation for the Theory of the Shared Inside,” Excursus 10: Matris in gremio – A Mariological Cricket,” and “Transition: On Ecstatic Immanence,” pps. 539–632.
Spheres Reading GroupBubbles, by Peter Sloterdijk – Welcome & Overview
Readers Underground group for Bubbles, by Peter Sloterdijk – Welcome & Overview page
Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things
J.F. Martel takes a deeper look at the hit Netflix series Stranger Things (season 1).
Winter of OriginsWinter of Origins – Week 8 – Hangout #12
Recording of our twelfth hangout discussing The Ever-Present Origin by Jean Gebser, covering Part 2, Chapters 5 and 6.
Winter of OriginsWinter of Origins – Week 7 – Hangout #11
Recording of our eleventh hangout discussing The Ever-Present Origin by Jean Gebser, discussing Part 2, Chapters 2–4.
Winter of OriginsWinter of Origins – Week 7 – Hangout #10
Archive recording of our tenth hangout discussing The Ever-Present Origin by Jean Gebser, discussing Part 2, Chapters 1–4.
Winter of OriginsWinter of Origins – Week 6 – Hangout #9
Our ninth hangout discussing The Ever-Present Origin by Jean Gebser. For this hangout, we’re excited to announce that author, integral philosopher, and founder of the Alderlore Insight Center Bonnitta Roy will be joining us. This may segue into our discussion of Part 2 of the book, including Chapter 1: The Irruption of Time.