The Wes Cecil Podcast

Two well regarded authors to the impact of AI robots and their impacts on humans as their subjects for novels. The results are a fascinating contrast in tone, style, and emphasis that highlights the many different reasons, and ways, we read.Image credit: https://easy-peasy.aiSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q9: The New World?Mayan Civilization 2,000-750 B.C. earliest developments750 B.C. to 250 A.D. Cities, construction of monumental architecture250- 900 A.D. Long Count Calendar and spread of city states. Height of Mayan Civilization900-1500 Post classical period, shift in power centers, fragmentation.1500-1600 Contact and conquest by the SpanishAztec Civilization600 A.D. Nahuatl speaking peoples begin to settle in Mexico600-1400 The Mixica and related groups travel around central Mexico without settling and forming an identifiable civilization. 1435-1522 founding of the Captial city of Tenochtitlan on Lake Texcoco and expansion of Aztec empireAztec PhilosophyNahua metaphysics is processive. Process, movement, becoming and transmutation are essential attributes of teotl. Teotl is properly understood as ever-flowing and ever-changing energy-in-motion -- not as a discrete, static entity. Because doing so better reflects teotl's dynamic and processual nature, I suggest  . . word "teotl" as a verb denoting process and movement rather than as a noun denoting a discrete static entity. So construed, "teotl" refers to the eternal, universal process of teotlizing. James Maffie "on earth we travel, we live along a mountain peak. Over here there is an abyss, over there there is an abyss. Wherever thou art to deviate, wherever thou art to go astray, there will thou fall, there wilt thou plunge into the deep" (Sahagun 1953-82:VI,p.125).Mayan PhilosophyIt this unfolding that is described by the Popol Vuh itself. The connection of daykeeping to humans as a central function is of particular importance. Humans play a pivotal role in ordering of the cosmos and its continual creation. The ordering of the days does no happen without humans . . . The world is structured in and through time. (Alexus McLeod)Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Perhaps THE breakthrough that makes the major components of civilization possible, writing transformed our capacity to understand both the world and ourselves. Nonetheless, literacy was historically exceedingly rare and even today is not universally considered an important capacity. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our powerful belief in the economic narrative of investment and growth blinds us to the actual nature of the world we experience and the problems we face. Much like Luther’s critique of the Catholic church, re-thinking this concept would be so disruptive as to cause a complete rethink of our approach to economic challenges - something we are so far unwilling to do.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q8: Why is life so hard?1 All existence is dukkha. The word dukkha has been variously translated as ‘suffering’, ‘anguish’, ‘pain’, or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. The Buddha’s insight was that our lives are a struggle, and we do not find ultimate happiness or satisfaction in anything we experience. This is the problem of existence.2. The cause of dukkha is craving. The natural human tendency is to blame our difficulties on things outside ourselves. But the Buddha says that their actual root is to be found in the mind itself. In particular our tendency to grasp at things (or alternatively to push them away) places us fundamentally at odds with the way life really is.3. The cessation of dukkha comes with the cessation of craving. As we are the ultimate cause of our difficulties, we are also the solution. We cannot change the things that happen to us, but we can change our responses.4. There is a path that leads from dukkha. Although the Buddha throws responsibility back on to the individual he also taught methods through which we can change ourselves, for example the Noble Eightfold Path.Right Understanding or Perfect VisionRight Resolve or Perfect EmotionRight Speech or Perfect SpeechRight Action or Perfect ActionRight Livelihood or Perfect LivelihoodRight Effort or Perfect EffortRight Mindfulness or Perfect AwarenessRight Meditation or Perfect SamadhiSign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the excess food available from the slow transition to Agriculture, cities began to form approximately 12,000 years ago. Nonetheless, as recently as 100 years ago most humans still did not live in urban settings. We are still learning how to adjust both mentally and culturally to putting so many primates in such a small area. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A reflection on the way in which Philosophy and its uses is so often misrepresented as an attempt to be RIGHT. However, this mistakes the power of philosophy and how it can help us understand our lives and our world. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q7: Where is the universe?He who sees all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, henever turns away from It (the Self).He who perceives all beings as the Self' for him how can there bedelusion or grief, when he sees this oneness (everywhere) ?He (the Self) is all-encircling, resplendent, bodiless, spotless,without sinews, pure, untouched by sin, all-seeing, all-knowing,transcendent, self-existent; He has disposed all things duly foreternal years. (Isa-Upanishad 6-8)This Self is never born, nor does It die. It did not spring fromanything, nor did anything spring from It. This Ancient One isunborn, eternal, everlasting. It is not slain even though thebody is slain. If the slayer thinks that he slays, or if the slain thinks thathe is slain, both of these know not. For It neither slays nor isIt slain.The Self is subtler than the subtle, greater than the great; Itdwells in the heart of each living being. He who is free fromdesire and free from grief, with mind and senses tranquil,beholds the glory of the Atman.The wise who know the Self, bodiless, seated within perishablebodies, great and all- pervading, grieve not.This Self cannot be attained by study of the Scriptures, nor byintellectual perception, nor by frequent hearing (of It); He whomthe Self chooses, by him alone is It attained. To him the Selfreveals Its true nature. (Katha-Upanishads II, 18-23)When Brahma's day is manifest, this multitude of living entities comes into being, and at the arrival of Brahma's night they are all annihilated.Again and again the day comes, and this host of beings is active; and again the night falls, O Partha, and they are helplessly dissolved.Yet there is another nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.That supreme abode is called unmanifested and infallible, and it is the supreme destination. When one goes there, he never comes back. That is My supreme abode.The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is greater than all, is attainable by unalloyed devotion. Although He is present in His abode, He is all-pervading, and everything is situated within Him. (Bhagavad-Gita 8- 18-22)Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After Art and Tools, Agriculture is clearly one of the most significant breakthroughs in the evolution of human culture. The changes both socially and intellectually necessary to enable a transition to sedentary cereal growing are likely still incomplete. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the habits essential for nurturing a philosophical mindset. Wes draws parallels between intellectual growth and athletic training, emphasizing the need for quiet reflection. He advocates for surrounding oneself with inspiring thinkers while highlighting the importance of creative outlets like writing and art. The discussion also critiques modern fast-paced schedules that hinder deep learning, urging a shift towards more focused commitments for true intellectual development.