0.6 Self-Organized Criticality in the Brain

Tom Morgan returns for his third appearance on Infinite Loops with Jim, Infinite Loops’ own Ed William and special guest Brett Andersen, an evolutionary psychology PhD student at the University of New Mexico. We discuss the implications of the ideas presented in Brett’s fantastic essay ‘Intimations of a New Worldview’, whether the rise of anti-heroes is a challenge to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, the influence of conscious vs unconscious design, and much more. Important Links:

• Intimations of a New Worldview
• Brett’s Substack
• Brett’s Twitter
• Tom’s blog
• Tom’s Twitter
• Awakening from the Meaning Crisis

Show Notes:

• Objective vs subjective morality
• Complexity as a precondition
• Biological complexification
• Complexification and social selection
• Relevance realisation
• Jordan Peterson’s ‘Maps of Meaning’ and the metamyth
• The optimal path and the process of creation
• The cognitive purpose of supernatural beliefs
• Mapping a response to the meaning crisis
• Quantum entanglement and consciousness
• Practical implications of Brett’s theory
• Cultural evolution
• Conscious vs unconscious design
• There is an underlying flow of things
• Breaking Bad and the Hero’s Journey
• Slack vs tension
• MUCH more!

Books Mentioned:

• Meaning in Life and Why It Matters; by Susan Wolf
• The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity; by Bobby Azarian
• The Life of the Cosmos; by Lee Smolin
• Evolution's Arrow: the direction of evolution and the future of humanity; by John Stewart
• Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny; by Robert Wright
• The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature; by Geoffrey Miller
• Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief; by Jordan Peterson
• Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis; by John Vervaeke
• Principia Mathematica; by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
• The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World; by Iain McGilchrist
• The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by
• The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism; by Howard Bloom
• Life Finds A Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity; by Andreas Wagner
• Tao Te Ching; by Laozing