Mind Matters
Discover more from Mind Matters
Mind Matters is a newsletter written by Oshan Jarow, exploring post-neoliberal economic possibilities, contemplative philosophy, consciousness, & some bountiful absurdities of being alive. If you’re reading this but aren’t subscribed, you can join here:
Hello, fellow humans!
Quick newsletter today, mainly to let you all know that I’m creating a Discord server to serve as a hub for discussion about topics usually covered in the newsletter, podcast, etc.
As you know, I’m interested in cross-pollinating ideas between the social sciences and philosophy of mind. But I’ve found nearly zero spaces or communities where this sort of eclectic discourse is happening.
Through doing the podcast, and writing essays & this newsletter, I’ve learned plenty of us exist out there who’re interested in this space. So, let’s build it.
If you’re unfamiliar with Discord, it’s a community platform that allows for a bunch of ‘chat rooms’ that are arranged by topic. So in the Musing Mind Discord, there’s a channel for conversations about psychedelics, philosophy, cognitive science, economics, technology, etc.
You can just join in as a silent observer and see what people are posting. Or, you can share links to resources you find interesting, share your own ideas, whatever. It’s a place to connect with others over shared interests.
At the moment it’s invite only, as communities that scale too quickly generally don’t develop cohesion. But any reader of this newsletter is welcome! If you’d like to join, this invite link should do the trick:
…
Patreon-Only Stuff
The Discord is free to all. But there are also going to be some channels only available to Patreon supporters of the podcast.
At the moment, there’s a “podcast-prep” channel, where I’ll announce future guests on the podcast. This way, if you’re interested in their work, we can discuss it beforehand, and generate some questions that I can work into my interview prep.
There’s also a “podcast-reflections” channel. After each episode, I’ll be recording separate, 5 - 10 minute reflections on the conversation. This’ll give me an opportunity to comment on ideas brought up in the convo where I would’ve wanted to go further, or just generally reflect on the conversation. I’ll release these both on Patreon, and on the Discord channel.
We Aren’t Disenchanted, Modernity Just Moved Animism Inside
There’s a common story that goes like this:
Across most of our species’ existence, we lived in what we perceived as ‘enchanted’ worlds. We perceived the world as alive with spirits, all manners of different intelligences, and supernatural forces.
Then, the scientific revolution happened, and we began beating back superstition. As scientific rationality rose, starting somewhere in the 1600’s, we eventually grew ‘disenchanted’. The dominant worldview became materialistic and secular.
Nowadays there’s a bit of a revival, a ‘re-enchantent’ movement going on. But for the most part, we’re still living in the wake of a disenchanted worldview.
Not so (!), says David Abram, author of the excellent book, The Spell of the Sensuous. We didn’t grow disenchanted, he writes. Instead, we simply transferred the object of animistic perception from the natural world, to man-made text.
He argues that perception is inherently animistic, and the big shift that happened was that we developed a text-based language that withdrew our perceptions of animism from the trees, animals, stones and rivers, and instead, we began perceiving little etchings on a page, alphabets, with the same animism we once saw that natural world.
When we see letters, words, sentences, they come alive with the same animism that the natural world did before alphabetic languages.
Prior to alphabets, language was always rooted in, and therefore a conversation with, the more-than-human worlds around us. But alphabets allowed us to develop languages from pure conceptual reference. Dense networks of symbols, symbols, symbols, none of which need be derived from the living world they reference:
Abram’s timeline differs from the enchantment/disenchantment one. He sees the fundamental shift as occurring between Socrates and Plato:
The way I like to encapsulate all this: literacy moved animism inside the human mind, and locked it up in there like a prisoner in a cold stone tower.
This suggests one reason why taking psychedelics so consistently ranks as one of the most meaningful experiences in people’s lives today. By ‘unselfing’, that is, unraveling the predictive assumptions and cognitive habits we’ve acquired, we can once again experience animate relationships with more-than-human worlds.
So taking a load of mushrooms and having conversations with plants, cats, lakes, or clouds is more than a quirk of psychedelics. It’s a return to the animate relationships our species once enjoyed with the world around them.
To put it pithily again: psychedelics take the animism back outside.
I don’t read this as cause for nostalgia. It’s not a question of how to return to the animistic lifeworlds we lost. The more interesting question is of synthesis: how do we learn from both modalities, and combine them to make life more awesome, for all kinds of intelligence?
Here’s a final Abrams quote, on magic and shedding the “accepted perceptual logic” of one’s culture:
“Yet in tribal cultures that which we call “magic” takes its meaning from the fact that humans, in an indigenous and oral context, experience their own consciousness as simply one form of awareness among many others. The traditional magician cultivates an ability to shift out of his or her common state of consciousness precisely in order to make contact with the other organic forms of sensitivity and awareness with which human existence is entwined. Only by temporarily shedding the accepted perceptual logic of his culture can the sorcerer hope to enter into relation with other species on their own terms; only by altering the common organization of his senses will he be able to enter into a rapport with the multiple nonhuman sensibilities that animate the local landscape. It is this, we might say, that defines a shaman: the ability to readily slip out of the perceptual boundaries that demarcate his or her particular culture—boundaries reinforced by social customs, taboos, and most importantly, the common speech or language—in order to make contact with, and learn from, the other powers in the land. His magic is precisely this heightened receptivity to the meaningful solicitations—songs, cries, gestures—of the larger, more-than-human field.”
Though Abrams is more refined, this recalls a young Arthur Rimbaud, who sought “a rational derangement of the sense to obtain the unknown.”
As always, you can find essays & podcasts on the website, or myself on Twitter.
If you’re into conversation on any of these ideas, the Discord community should provide a much more fertile environment to have them. Even better, they can be had not only with me, but with the entire community of those who read these things & find them interesting.
Until next time,
Oshan