Mindscape 160 | Edward Slingerland on Confucianism, Daoism, and Wu Wei
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2021
- Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Plato and Aristotle founded much of what we think of as Western philosophy during the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. Interestingly, that historical period also witnessed the foundation of some of the major schools of Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism and Daoism. This is a long-overdue discussion of ancient Chinese ideas, featuring philosopher and religious-studies scholar Edward Slingerland. We talk about the relationship between these two schools of thought, and their differences and similarities with Western philosophy. One of the biggest ideas is wu wei, or “effortless action” - the way that true mastery consists of doing things without too much conscious control. Today we would call it “flow” or “being in the zone,” but the idea stretches back quite a ways.
Edward Slingerland received his Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford. He is currently Distinguished University Scholar, Professor of Philosophy, and Associate Member of the departments of Asian Studies and Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is Director of the Database of Religious History, and co-director of the Center for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture. Among his books are Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity, and a translation of Confucius’s Analects. His new book is Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization. - Věda a technologie
So I got my degree in the Chinese language but then also had classes on history and culture and one of those was a traditional Chinese values class. We went over a lot of daoism but the teacher didn't really have good enough English to explain a lot of things well. It's nice though that Edward can use his command of English to really expound upon a lot of these ideas. Having my background and what I know from my studies and living in China and then coupling that with his views on these concepts is quite a treat. Thanks Sean for really being open minded and trying to branch out to many forms of thinking and philosophy.
Thank you so much, Sean!
So incredibly interesting. Thank you publishing the interview.
Thank you for keeping your mind open and continuing to grow, while helping us all grow with you !!
Consider inviting Toronto university professor of psychology and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke. There’s probably no better person to ask about eastern philosophy in the context of modern western science.
I will look him up, thank you
@@renecarmille8797 i’d recommend searching for a podcast interview, it’s the best way when you want to find the general view.
This cast is soooo good! Thank you Sean for your continued work and inspiring others to explore Nature. You rock!
Been looking forward to this since the teaser during the most recent AMA - thank you Sean!
I appreciate the symbiosis of Confucianism and Daoism relating to science. Science is the structured process we train to perfect, and the answers we receive from that process arise naturally without force, since forcing an answer introduces bias.
A timely theme. Congratulations!
My god man do you realize that the dissemination of all this information across the world will have consequences! Somewhere, in some small village in (Greenland, Inuvialuktun, kazistan) or wherever that there is some 10 year old kid who understands this stuff and will ,, who knows what kind of wild notions they will formulate.
Thanks for taking the time to share this wonderful knowledge.
Wow, I enjoyed this talk SO much, and I learned a lot! Really enjoyed listening to this guy's explanation and Sean's commentary along the way as he was learning along with me. I will listen to this one again, for sure.
Very informative conversation
This is for me, thanks so much Sean. 🙏🕉🙏
I love this, thank you good sirs
Be relaxed in any situation you find you're self. You know I was once in a bad period in my life. But when I learned I had to wait 8 mounts before I could see someone. I Thought to myself. Wow that many people seeking help. Then It must be normal. I never got the help. However I learned from that to be myself. No matter what they say. "Sting: English man in New York".
Very good. ;)
Would you consider have a dialogue with Wes Cecil?
這位精研東方中國哲思的學者對「無爲」和孔孟思想的理解大致無可評議，但他對老子的「道德」不能說有誤解但深度不足，這從他對「道」和「德」從頭到尾沒有定義可見一斑。
「道」和「德」二字各是什麼？合起來是什麼？意義是什麼？請參詳高本衲宏文 何謂道德？。不開玩笑也不是老王賣瓜自賣自誇，這篇文章絕對精確也很重要，你可以拿去比對古今中外碩學宏儒的任何相關論述，找到錯誤高某一定從善如流立即修正。
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道者天地運行之至理，德者人我承感之真情也。
道屬天屬地不屬人。以是，道從首從走不從人。故曰：“大道之行也，天下為公”、“人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然”。
德屬人不屬天地。以是，德從人不從天、不從地。故曰：“道生之，德畜之”、“為而不恃，長而不宰，是謂玄德”。
人必無單，因此德從雙人。德又從心。心者念也，在內；行者為也，在外。心乃行之始，行乃心之終，是謂“德行”。行無自了，必有之於人，故行亦從雙人。又，人者心之器也，故德行終不離人。
天地無心，故大道無情，宋儒張載遂曰：“為天地立心”。無心則寡情，寡情則不親，故曰：“太上忘情，天道無親”。
天道無心、寡情、不親，卻有常。常者永也，必也，真也。故天道即常道，常道即常理，常理即真理。
人皆有目，目木成相。人又有心，相成心上是為想。想者念也，念者今心也，今者當下也，俱心之用也。
念有善惡，惡亦從心，故又屬人。人皆有情，情有愛情、感情、真情、友情，卻無惡情，以惡念無情也。日青乃晴，水青則清，人青是倩，心青為情。
德有玄德、恩德、盛德、美德，而無惡德，概惡者非德也。
準此，何謂“道德”？合理之謂道，有情是為德。
理者天地運行之正道，情者人我承感之盛德也。
Is the guest related to the founder of Slingerland drums?
Maybe you should have someone on to talk about Diogenes and the cynics, they share a lot with the concept of wu wei, but in a comical antagonistic way (perhaps it just flowed out like that)
Karl Jaspers also made that connection too when referring to the Axial age. A couple centuries later, the Hellenistic Greek era had similar warring states bearing the fruits of cynics, stoics, skeptics, and epicurians ~300 BCE.
great topic!
Do or do not. There is no try
do one on indian philosophy next!
Thank you professor.
57:10 Good.
Can you just make the video shorter by 1 second please? 😂
Feel bad for folks who try listening without add-free app - luv ya Sean but too many adverts....
So become a Patreon supporter.
@@MichaelEdelman1954 I'm disabled and barely surviving as is - simple simian guilt trip failed.
45:23 dao deging, ty r suspecious of language ty r worried abt being trapped in any kind of linguisting formulation
1:00:28 Zhuangzi the cartoon book
Great sir'respected from pakisatn
nice
46:42 Just like for more than a century we kept using misconstrued evolutionary principles, invoking things like "the survival of the fittest" to excuse our inner animal and its socio-economic behaviors, we're now in the position of misusing concepts like *Dharma* (what we would call "the laws of the universe", but would be more aptly understood as "the nature of things") and *Dao* (the great principle of existence), and detach ourselves from the moral life and from the feeling of duty towards other beings. "Why should i try to adress the injustices i see happening if they happen by way of the great Dao?", "Why should i want to change the great dharma that's governing others?".. seems to be what's "understood" from these worldviews.
But evolution is *not* about that dumb phrase, which by the way was invented by someone to justify his economic theories in relation to Darwin's biological ones. Furthermore *human civilisation is built on the shoulders of very "weak" people:* Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Turing, Shannon, Einstein, Chomsky, etc - statistically having few offspring, no drive for leadership and almost no economic interest. The kind of "fit/strong" individuals that we're so mistakingly identifying in our culture, only exploited and managed to get ahead of the pack without making any real contribution to art, knowledge and technology -if anything, they greatly delayed their development. What we're so stubbornly failing to see is that *evolution implies networking, ecological integration and cooperation, and it allows a lot of.. well.. evolving!* But that doesn't even matter, because *for a self-aware human being to take example from blind processes of nature to inform his moral behaviour is stupid to say the least!*
The ego acts like a filter that transforms any scenario and information so that it suits its preexisting (primitive) interests. In the same way, Zen and Taoist principles could unintentionally trigger a remarkable wave of egotism, cynicism, a detached pragmatic lifestyle. But a real understanding of dharma would only wake you to your moral life, not estrange you from this natural and crucial human trait! We must take these teachings to advance the quality of our consciousness, and not use them to become better savages.
*Morality IS the dharma of highly evolved conscious beings.*
I'm anti theist and have very little time and my interest in this bollocks has wained over the years.
Legends
Here's one that's absolutely true, I'm the nameless traveler occupied by the ignorance of the man ape and his illusion of more, a poor excuse for Sapien.
Just let the imaginary self go and be one with the Universe.
@@jellyicecream3324 Try to be mindful and see yourself with blunt honesty however inconvenient is what you find, and if you catch yourself being bitter, resentful, full of criticism and irony, ask yourself *"If i’d actually had realized in me this truth, of being the endless mystery, would i behave like that?"* To transcend your ego and realize the great watcher you must first, very slowly and painstakingly resolve all your personal issues. If you have in you resentment, regret, shame, jealousy, envy, greed, a desire to impose or conquer, etc, even by the tiniest amounts, these will block you in your egocentric level of consciousness. Imagine a vault door-all these psychological things are like those solid bars that lock everything tight. You can run around telling yourself that you are the universe, you are the watcher, the infinite.. all you want, this doesn’t actually make you realize "the watcher" in you. You’re saying those things from egocentric consciousness. If i propositionally (a.k.a. symbolically, a.k.a in words) know that i am the universe this will have almost no worth. It will have as much worth to my conscious experience as a sentence written on a piece of paper going "I am the universe!" which then goes into my shirt pocket. Only instead of the pocket it goes into your memory. Just go to a new-agey meeting and watch those folks and you’ll see among them pure egotistical idiots, even a few insane folks saying that they are the universe, Spirit, brahman or whatever. Words are not empty but they worth very little if they aren’t joined by a momentous transformation in participatory and perspectival knowledge-a profound shift in your experience. Whatever you’ll do from there on you’ll never get "pissed", you’ll have the total cool casual demeanor of something that realized (in both senses of the word) that it’s the endless, nameless, fundamentally mysterious stuff people call "existence", or "the dao", or "God", or "the universe". But this realization doesn’t bestow you with a degree in physics, you won’t know how to do CPR, develop a proof of stake smart contracts blockchain, etc. Besides awaking you need growing up and cleaning up, like some say. This is a continuous lifetime journey. Yes, there are awakened gurus living in caves, but they sit like rocks in their realization. You can also do that, whatever feels natural then & there in your shoes.
@@raresmircea blah blah and blah 🤔
What is wrong with you, I've just come along for the ride.
I love getting pissed every now and then, it helps with my creativity and stimulating me into action, it never lasts, however, the chemicals I create in doing so makes for better brain chemistry.
I'll narrow down the me for you.
I awake again, I am again. The am I am is just an illusion.
Really I'm the nameless, blameless and free.
This is it, no replays, no one gets another go.
I'm watching the pages turn in anticipation, I know the words are already written and yet I'm driving this hairless ape like I stole it.
Could crash and burn at every turn and yet five decades later I'm still turning pages.
I've met the crazies, I used to tell people I taught my grand kids how to quantum jump in my spare time, however, they believed shite like that so now in my spare time I make Unicorns out of left over stars.
Because
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Of course the same applies to you.
@@jellyicecream3324 I understand, take care and good luck 🤘
😀
😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
😀😀😀😀😀
Wu Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ ta fuk with !
😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
You need to do an episode on why you promote and practice censorship, Sean.
What r u referring to?
@@origins7298 I'm referring to a previous--substantial--comment I made to one of his podcasts. Sean knows what he did.
@@kreek22 pretty sure Sean doesn't read the comments , at least I've never seen him respond to any comments. So unless you're going to clue the rest of us in its kind of pointless
@@kreek22 imagine getting all bent out of shape only to find out youtube has a censorship algorithm
@@uninspired3583 Is there really any important distinction (other than IQ) between people like Sean and people who devise censorship algorithms?
😀