Episodes
Saturday Jun 10, 2023
AI - THREAT OR PROMISE?
Saturday Jun 10, 2023
Saturday Jun 10, 2023
In this podcast, we discuss AI and its recent emergence into the public sphere. We examine four main aspects of AI; what the term 'AI' signifies, the knowledge status of its products, the political and economic ramifications of AI, especially its role in automation, and its position in current affairs public discourse. [Free. 61 minutes.]
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
OUR BIGGEST DANGER?
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
In this podcast, we consider Nietzsche's assertion that "Our biggest danger is disgust at man." The discussion ranges wide and includes an appraisal of Nietzsche's counter-insight that life is redeemed by art. [Free. 39 minutes.]
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
A UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE?
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
What is a universe of discourse? In this podcast, I attempt an answer, followed by an appraisal of the uses and abuse the concept might be put to. (Click the link to buy me a coffee.) [Free. 23 minutes.]
Monday Jul 11, 2022
Thursday Jun 02, 2022
THE JUBILEE, PSYCHOANALYSIS & OTHER GOSSIP - INTERESTING TIMES 53
Thursday Jun 02, 2022
Thursday Jun 02, 2022
In this podcast, I consider the question of the nature of the UK monarchy as revealed by the current jubilee celebrations, and if psychoanalysis might be useful for answering it. Recorded as I take my constitutional so contains some real-world sounds :) [Free. 39 minutes.]
Thursday Feb 24, 2022
INSECURITY IN OUR TURBULENT TIMES
Thursday Feb 24, 2022
Thursday Feb 24, 2022
This podcast is a wide-ranging consideration of individual, psychological insecurity and material, collective insecurity and the relationship between them. We make our observations in the context of current events, especially the war in Ukraine, global warming, and financial meltdown, whilst drawing on inspiration from process philosophers like the Buddha, Heraclitus, Whitehead, Watts, Nietzsche, Marx and Lao Tzu. We draw on a brief discussion of the sublime and the beautiful to help us identify the emancipatory comportment to our intrinsic vulnerability and mortality. [Free. 50 minutes.]
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
LAO TZU 40
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
Thursday Aug 26, 2021
This podcast deals with Chapter 40 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. We concentrate on the amazing relevance this chapter has to our current political, economic and spiritual emergencies. In a few short lines, Lao Tzu diagnoses the condition of the working people of his time as subjection to violent and militarily oriented 'robber barons' whilst they themselves are the creators of value and the necessary goods to sustain life. This is exactly our condition too. Lao Tzu offers a meditation to counter the fragmental [non-holistic, non-systemic thinking] which is the ideological counterpart to a kleptocratic economy. [Free. 29 minutes.]
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
REASON ON REASON 2 - THE ANTECEDENTS TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
In this second episode of our series on reason, I take a broad brush to outline
some of the main antecedents to the so-called European Enlightenment, also know as 'The Age of Reason'. I focus on the rise of experimental science in the contexts of church power and violence against those who contradict its doctrines, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and advances in mathematics. The figures of Descartes, Galileo and Newton loom large but Aristotle, Aquinas, Copernicus, Kepler and others also have parts. [Free. 44 minutes.]
Monday Sep 21, 2020
LAO TZU 27
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Monday Sep 21, 2020
This podcast offers a reading of Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching. This short chapter deals with the nature of the Tao itself and how it creates all things from nothing. I consider the nature of the Tao as process based rather than thing based. I also draw out resonances between this chapter, particularly with regard to nothingness, and insights into particle physics as suggested by Fritjof Capra in his book, The Tao of Physics (1975). [Free. 20 minutes.]
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
COVIDIOCY: WHO BENEFITS? - INTERESTING TIMES 10
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
In this podcast, we analyse the covid-is-a-hoax movement which demonstrated recently in London, demanding the abandonment of all remedial measures against the global pandemic. We do so primarily by asking the question that we identified in a recent podcast [Grassroots and Astroturf] 'Who benefits from this movement?' The question proves revelatory of how this movement plays to the far right and upholds the status quo, whilst claiming the contrary. The involvement of far right parties in the loose coalition of new-agers, antivaxers, climate deniers, and adherents to fantastic conspiracy theories is not accidental. These elements are stitched together by irrationalism. [Free. 24 minutes.]