Hi Brett, I know that your focus generally is on evolutionary psychology with an emphasis on Nietzsche, but have you covered depth psychology and Jung much (I've seen you have made passing references to him)? I would be interested in seeing your more in-depth thoughts on this if it piques your interest. I am also interested in your thoughts, if any, on the interaction between depth psychology and gnosticism which similarly posits a complexification and individuation process. All the best...
Very thought provoking post. How do you see the Nietzschen perspective as a solution to the meaning crisis? Does power bring about meaning and purpose? Is power in itself the only end?
It certainly true that the universe becomes more and more complex. And organisms in it gain more power to execute and control their behaviour. But does the power give a telos for that ability? For what is that capability of action used for?
Utterly brilliant, I think. It's kind of a shame in a way that Nietzsche used the word "power" as so many people instantly project their own meanings on to that word, and they disapprove of what they think it implies, and it puts them off trying to understand what he meant by it himself, which is not one simple layer of meaning. Please don't misunderstand this, but I am hoping this is an indication that Brett Andersen is "better", not in some simple sense of having "recovered" from an "illness", but in the sense of having been through his own personal shamanic experiences and having "spiralled around" to an understanding on a higher level, which enables him to thoroughly appreciate what he was explaining previously, while again (hopefully) being able to communicate with those around him without just rejecting it or filtering it through any hyper-sensitive defensiveness resulting from complex personal issues in his past and his deep personal emotional and psychological needs. His viewpoint and analyses remain significant; if Nietzsche was right, and that he was predicting a couple of centuries of post-Christian nihilism before humankind rediscovers spirituality (but without being stupidly superstitious and orthodox-propositional about it), then we are not much past the middle of that, but in the longer term Mr Andersen is part of the solution, not part of the problems.
I'm a little confused by the graph at the end that equates order with complexity. It sounds like complexity is some emergent criticality between order and chaos, instead of being manifestly order (as it is portrayed in the graph). I'm taking the two as being descriptors of interpretations of an observer, but the way I see it, order is 'low entropy', and chaos is 'high entropy', and a fractal emerges where the two are balanced, indicating symmetries in more dimensions previously unconsidered. I ran into this study by Jascha Sohl-Dickstein (https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2024/02/12/fractal.html) at one point that reminds me of what I mean.
Glad to see you posting again ! Spent a good part of the day reading this and preceding parts, brilliant work. It's so interesting finding a convergence of idea's/conclusions, although the understandings I have come to are much lower resolution and a result of a personal journey from religion -> nihilism -> descent -> rediscovery and grounding of values. I wonder Brett, while you explain a cultural process of change and revaluation of values, is this a process that you see yourself as having gone through?
Hi Brett, I know that your focus generally is on evolutionary psychology with an emphasis on Nietzsche, but have you covered depth psychology and Jung much (I've seen you have made passing references to him)? I would be interested in seeing your more in-depth thoughts on this if it piques your interest. I am also interested in your thoughts, if any, on the interaction between depth psychology and gnosticism which similarly posits a complexification and individuation process. All the best...
Very thought provoking post. How do you see the Nietzschen perspective as a solution to the meaning crisis? Does power bring about meaning and purpose? Is power in itself the only end?
It certainly true that the universe becomes more and more complex. And organisms in it gain more power to execute and control their behaviour. But does the power give a telos for that ability? For what is that capability of action used for?
Utterly brilliant, I think. It's kind of a shame in a way that Nietzsche used the word "power" as so many people instantly project their own meanings on to that word, and they disapprove of what they think it implies, and it puts them off trying to understand what he meant by it himself, which is not one simple layer of meaning. Please don't misunderstand this, but I am hoping this is an indication that Brett Andersen is "better", not in some simple sense of having "recovered" from an "illness", but in the sense of having been through his own personal shamanic experiences and having "spiralled around" to an understanding on a higher level, which enables him to thoroughly appreciate what he was explaining previously, while again (hopefully) being able to communicate with those around him without just rejecting it or filtering it through any hyper-sensitive defensiveness resulting from complex personal issues in his past and his deep personal emotional and psychological needs. His viewpoint and analyses remain significant; if Nietzsche was right, and that he was predicting a couple of centuries of post-Christian nihilism before humankind rediscovers spirituality (but without being stupidly superstitious and orthodox-propositional about it), then we are not much past the middle of that, but in the longer term Mr Andersen is part of the solution, not part of the problems.
Welcome back... and thank you for sharing!
I'm a little confused by the graph at the end that equates order with complexity. It sounds like complexity is some emergent criticality between order and chaos, instead of being manifestly order (as it is portrayed in the graph). I'm taking the two as being descriptors of interpretations of an observer, but the way I see it, order is 'low entropy', and chaos is 'high entropy', and a fractal emerges where the two are balanced, indicating symmetries in more dimensions previously unconsidered. I ran into this study by Jascha Sohl-Dickstein (https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2024/02/12/fractal.html) at one point that reminds me of what I mean.
Glad to see you posting again ! Spent a good part of the day reading this and preceding parts, brilliant work. It's so interesting finding a convergence of idea's/conclusions, although the understandings I have come to are much lower resolution and a result of a personal journey from religion -> nihilism -> descent -> rediscovery and grounding of values. I wonder Brett, while you explain a cultural process of change and revaluation of values, is this a process that you see yourself as having gone through?
Looking forward to the next in the series :)
Welcome back Brett. So glad to get back into this series. I suppose I’ll start at the beginning and put aside some time soon for that.