The Cunning of Geist

11/01/2025

Do we have a personal soul that survives death? Many religions teach this as foundational. Whether reincarnation or a heaven that awaits us, a belief in life after death is found in Eastern and Western traditions. But in our materialistic, scientific world, the belief is less common than it once was. But rather than a personal survival, the Sprit which drives us all certainly lives on. And so does collective memory. This episode explores.

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 10/31/2021 · 25m

05/01/2025

Thanks for the continued support of the podcast. Please note that there is an index of all topics covered in the "Featured" section of the page. So you can peruse the list and find which episodes to explore. And let me have your comments and questions.

02/01/2025

This issue of Mind/Body dualism and consciousness has been discussed often in the podcast. This article is a decent summary of the issues involved.

What is consciousness? Is it physical, spiritual, or something else? Don't trust your consciousness to tell you what consciousness really is.

28/12/2024

Is time cyclical? Or is it linear, extending infinity back in the past and infinitely as well into the future? Or did it begin with a creation event? Big questions for sure, and there is much in religion, science, and philosophy that addresses this question.

This previous episode explores the topic from several standpoints.

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 10/18/2021 · 28m

20/12/2024

In order to understand Hegel, it is important to grasp the difference between reasoning and common understanding. Hegel uses the German word "vernunft" for reasoning, and "verstand" for understanding. Reasoning is holistic, big picture thinking, where as understanding is either/or, isolating an item type of thinking.

Both types are needed to function. But today's world often emphasizes verstand over vernunft. And in many cases does not recognize "reasoning" at all.

This episode covers the topic in detail.

Philosophy Podcast · 81 Episodes · Updated Bimonthly

15/12/2024

As I have stated in the podcast, life does underpin mind and consciousness. And the universe as a whole is alive. This article concurs.

In "The Dawn of Mind", neuroscientist James Cooke explores the grand question of how matter became conscious and alive.

14/12/2024

We often talk about race today. But an analysis of the concept of "race" shows that it was a notion developed and adopted during the Enlightenment to give justification to keeping certain groups down and exploited. This episode shows how this was carried out.

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 07/11/2021 · 31m

11/12/2024

The unity of Mind/Body is often discussed on the podcast. This oneness is observed in medicine with the well-documented placebo effect.

The placebo effect has puzzled scientists for centuries. Philosopher Dien Ho argues that we now know how it works, and that this should transform our understanding of the relationship between mind and body. We must stop thinking of improvements in health due to placebo as somehow less real than thos...

10/12/2024

I have often discussed the origins of the universe in the podcast. This article is a great review - and easy to follow - of what we know and don't about the universe's beginning and time. The key is that the notion that "time started with the Big Bang" is no longer considered settled science.

It was thought that science could tell us about the origins of the Universe. Today that great endeavour is in serious doubt

06/12/2024

We know so much, but at the same time there is so much more we do not know. Interesting summary here, and understandable.

Thanks to Hubble, JWST, and the Planck mission, we're starting to see cracks in the current ideas in cosmology, expressed by the Hubble Tension, the Cosmic Shear Tension, and the role dark energy plays in the expansion of the Universe over time. Good news: powerful new instruments are already survey...

04/12/2024

Is the universe cyclical? This belief is foundational in much of Eastern teachings, but not so in the West. This episode explores this question in-depth. Comments please!

Link below.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/039-was-there-an-actual-creation-event-god-the-big/id1519670774?i=1000538955779

28/11/2024

Gurdjieff held that most people do not have one guiding center, but three minds - he called us three brained beings. Tbese three are the physical mind, the emotional, and the rational. Each has its own agenda, and often they do not speak to each other. Only when we recognize a fourth mind, the master within, that we have a guiding center, with purpose. This episode explores.

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 08/09/2021 · 28m

22/11/2024

More on materialism:

Many still consider materialism – the view that nothing exists except matter and its movements – the result of years of careful scientific progress stemming from the Enlightenment. But not so argues Bernardo Kastrup. In an exclusive extract of his book, yet to be released, and a result of decade...

21/11/2024

Materialism is the dominant paradigm taught today in universities and expounded in the media. "Follow the science" we are told. But is materialism the whole story, or just half of it? This episode explores the topic from several different standpoints. thttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/031-scientism-vs-hegelianism-which-world-view-is-correct/id1519670774?i=1000527012394

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 06/27/2021 · 24m

20/11/2024

I may have shared this before, but here is Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, on how to view one's the life. To me, this is putting Hegel's "true infinity" in everyday terms.

In 1994, the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association interviewed Steve Jobs. What he said during this unscripted film interview is remarkable. In this foot...

14/11/2024

A running theme of the podcast is that the materialist conception of evolution is incorrect, because it focuses solely on randomness and survival in an animalistic way. But we are endowed with a different capability, in that we have a mind. And this mind seeks more than survival. It can conceive purpose and lay plans to actualize its future.

And further, the mind is not a result of mere random mutations here on earth, but is built into the universe itself.

This podcast episode explains how and why this is so.

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 04/18/2021 · 23m

07/11/2024

There seems to be three ways of looking at the world - as nondualistic, dualistic, or triadic. The Hindu Advaita Vedanta holds the nondualistic view. Much of western religion sees the world as dualistic - good versus evil. And Hegel offers a triadic system, where everything is "becoming," being both mediated and immediate at the same moment.

This episode explores:

Podcast Episode · The Cunning of Geist · 03/07/2021 · 29m

04/11/2024

I have not discussed Krishnamurti much on the podcast, but he had some great concepts, and communicated them very clearly. Example:

J. Krishnamurti: “Now, is the thinker different from his thoughts? Does the thinker exist without thoughts? Is there a thinker apart from thought? Stop thinking, and where is the thinker? Is the thinker of one thought different from the thinker of another thought? Is the thinker separate from his thought, or does thought create the thinker, who then identifies himself with thought when he finds it convenient, and separates himself when it is not convenient? That is, what is the "I", the thinker?

Obviously, the thinker is composed of various thoughts which have become identified as the "me". So, the thoughts produce the thinker, not the other way round. If I have no thoughts, then there is no thinker; not that the thinker is different each time, but if there are no thoughts there is no thinker. So, thoughts produce the thinker, as actions produce the actor.” (Talk 1, Bangalore, 04 July 1948).

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