Heart Yoga Radio

THE INTERNET AS COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

This playful ramble likens the internet to the unconscious of the whole of humanity. If we let it, the internet rubs our noses in our being as a species, warts, wonders and all. However, we argue, it is now possible to avoid this stark and partly painful self-revelation by retreating into echo chambers. The monetisation of the internet through advertising is partly responsible. We touch on the desirability of a de-centralised internet which encourages and rewards good content creators. [Free. 25 minutes.]

NUMBERS ONE: SEDUCTIONS OF THE ALGORITHM

In this podcast, I consider the mysticism of numbers of the Pythagoreans and its influence down the ages on Plato, Aristotle, Kepler, Newton and on to the scientism of the modern age. I contrast this with a mysticism of endless, unfathomable mystery and tease out the ramifications for the Socratic question of how life is to be lived. [Free. 38 minutes.]

NIETZSCHE'S METAPHORS OF WAR AND PLAY

Rather than using our usual spontaneous exposition, this podcast is a reading of a formal paper. It deals with the way in which two metaphors structure Nietzsche's engagements with our culture and philosophical tradition. [Free. 23 minutes.]

POSTMODERNISM: A FEW REMARKS

In this podcast, I draw attention to the way in which the term 'postmodernism' has become a derogatory term. I attempt to clarify and rehabilitate it by unpacking J. F. Lyotard's addage that 'postmodernism is suspicion towards grand narratives'. [Free. 27 minutes.]

ON BOUNDARIES

In this podcast I discuss the boundaries that demark the concepts we use and the 'things' that we perceive. I draw on the chapter entitled 'The Will to Power as Knowledge' from Nietzsche's Will to Power. I suggest that a certain moveability of boudaries provides us with analytic and hermeneutical tools. Other philosophers I draw on are Smullyan and Kolakowski. I also suggest that this discussion underscores the significance of the Dionysian. This podcast provides some of the background for Lao Tzu: Part Nine which is to be released shortly. [Free. 28 minutes.]

NIETZSCHE 101

An introduction to Nietzsche's thought in which I discuss Nietzsche's "great task" and his ludic, artistic method of persuing it. I touch on Nietzsche's anti-Platonism, anti-systematic approach to philosophy, notions of life-affirmation and life-negation amongst other things. The shifting concept of the will to power is elucidated, showing its various guises. [Free. 32 minutes.]

TALK ON PATANJALI'S YOGA SUTRA AT CHORELY

A talk I gave at Chorley on the first few aphorisms of the Yoga Sutra. [Patrons only. 2 hours 11 minutes.]

CONSCIOUSNESS [THOUGHT LABORATORY PREAMBLE]

This podcast is an entirely extempore survey of 'the hard problem of consciousness' which was undertaken as a preliminary to a proposed series on this matter. It is by no means exhaustive and rather rough but I offer it to patrons in the hope of wetting their appetite. [Patrons only. 46 minutes.]

THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART FIVE: DISSOLUTION OF THE BINARIES

In this podcast the epilogue to our series on The Matrix, we consider attempts to dissolve the binaries which have structured much thought for millenia. These binaries are real-apparent, subject-object and inside-outside [of the human psyche.] The attempts at dissolution invoked are Wittgenstein's private language argument which is found in Philosophical Investigations, and Nietzsche's account of the fate of the 'real world' as a concept over time as elucidated in Twilgth of the Idols. We argue that this doesn't sideline the political issues raised in the previous podcast in this series, as might first seem to be the case. [Free. 41 minutes.]

THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PILL? PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

This is the first of a series devoted to the philosophical resonances of the film The Matrix [1999]. We take it that many of the philosophical issues brought up in The Matrix boil down to the consequences of presupposing the binary 'real-apparent'. We outline how this is so in this introduction in preparation for forthcoming podcasts on the real-apparanet binary's entanglement with existentialism, metaphysics and politics. If you can't see the film, at least watch this brilliant four minute clip in which the hero Neo is given the choice between the red pill which will open him up to the reality of his situation and the blue pill which will keep him in a state of delusion: https://youtu.be/zQ1_IbFFbzA. [Free. 22 minutes.]