Mahon McCann Podcast: Recent Episodes

Mahon McCann

The deepest self-improvement podcast on the internet, philosophy PhD student, martial arts coach and playwright, Mahon McCann, delves deep with the world’s brightest and most thought-provoking leaders to educate, inspire and motivate you to reach your wisest, best self.

mahonmccann.substack.com

Hello there!

This interview has been a long time coming; I’ve always been a fan of Paul’s work, so it’s really great to get him on the pod for a chat on his latest book, ‘Against the Machine’.

In this episode we are discussing the history and concept of the machine, its spiritual and historical and philosophical roots, and most importantly, what a better story than the machine might look like? We explore how we return to tradition, our own conversion journeys, and how to counteract the dehumanising effects of modernity.

Chapters:00:00 Introduction and guest introduction01:05 What is the machine? Its history and systemic nature04:13 The spiritual and theological dimensions of the machine08:40 The modern pursuit of power and the myth of progress12:21 The fall, pride, and the desire to become gods16:40 The technological religion and the quest for immortality22:37 AI and the final stage of the machine30:07 A better story: returning to roots and tradition36:30 The Christian story, repentance, and living rightly48:49 The role of the Eucharist and spiritual renewal57:28 Conclusion: hope and returning to the eternal

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There is very little that is happening in the world today that is not contained already in the pages of Plato’s Republic. Particularly, in book eight. In book eight, Plato deals with decline of democracy into tyranny…

In this lecture, we will meet the five regimes: aristocracy (love of wisdom), timocracy (love of honor), oligarchy (love of money), democracy (love of freedom), and tyranny (love of gain). We will meet the five characters that both create and are created by these various regimes and depict the psychological portraits of their decline.

Chapters:00:00 Welcome and Setup00:16 Back to Republics Main Question02:28 Five Regimes and Characters04:46 Aristocracy Ideal State05:39 Nuptial Number Mystery07:11 Timocracy Honor and War08:43 Timocratic Character10:27 Oligarchy12:07 Oligarchic Soul Split13:15 Democracy14:14 Democratic Decadence and Desire15:19 Necessary vs Unnecessary Desires18:48 From Democracy to Tyranny19:29 Making a Tyrant20:52 Wrap up

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Super-excited to have hosted an interdisciplinary discussion between two legends, the biologist Michael Levin and metaphysician D.C. Schindler.

In the conversation we discuss Levin’s “Platonic Morphospace” research programme, which treats morphogenesis, physiology, and behaviour as pattern navigation by goal-directed cellular collectives. We discuss how these discoveries question the foundations of the mechanical philosophy for science and highlight alignments with neo-Platonic philosophy.

Mike's website: https://thoughtforms.life/DC's books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/D.-C.-Schindler/author/B001JRTOAU

Chapters:00:00 Introductions and Setup00:29 Levin’s Big Questions01:14 Patterns and Morphospace03:21 Beyond Evolutionary Explanations03:51 Synthetic Agents Xenobots05:04 Minimal Computational Models06:09 Actionable Research Program08:02 Schindler’s Neoplatonic Lens14:36 Machines Organicism Debate19:19 Cognition as Continuum22:03 Nonphysical Causation Example25:15 Math Truths as Causal28:35 Expanding Platonic Space30:48 Forms Beyond Matter31:29 Life Versus Death Question33:03 Dog Corpse Thought Experiment35:21 Operational Categories Spectrum37:40 Death As Shrinking Agency40:26 Hybrids Xenobots Blur Lines41:46 Embryo Alignment And Goals44:28 Soul As Organization Pattern48:19 Transformation Models And Math53:52 Phase Transitions Emergence Debate58:07 Wrap Up Future Work

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Hey Hey,

We are back with a new podcast interview!

This week I am talking to Mark Walsh ( ⁨@FeralPhilosophy_mw⁩ ) - Mark is a globally recognised embodiment trainer, trauma educator, and author who has spent over 25 years dedicated to one mission: helping people get into their bodies and stay sane. Holding an honours degree in psychology from Leeds University and an Aikido black belt, Mark founded Europe’s first specialist embodiment training company and is widely regarded as a world leader in the field. He is the CEO of Embodiment Unlimited, founder of the Certificate of Embodiment Coaching (CEC). He has qualified over 2,000 coaches across more than 40 countries. Mark hosts The Embodiment Coaching Podcast with over 3 million downloads, and led the record-breaking Embodiment Conference — featuring 1,000 teachers and attended by over 500,000 delegates worldwide.

In this podcast, Mark shares his transformative journey through spirituality, embodiment, and the crisis of modernity and back to his Catholic roots. We explore the importance of tradition, morality, and community in restoring meaning and mental health in a fragmented world.

Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Mark Walsh and His Background02:53 Exploring Spirituality and Family Influence06:03 Navigating Nihilism and Materialism09:00 The Role of Embodiment in Healing11:57 The Search for Meaning in Modernity14:53 Rituals, Liturgy, and the Body18:01 Cultural Critique and the Absurdity of Modern Life20:51 The Need for Boundaries in Society23:53 The Future of Spirituality and Hope for the Younger Generation31:07 The Role of Spirituality in Recovery and Society32:01 Christianity and Modern Philosophies33:13 The Balance of Kindness and Boundaries34:41 The Crisis in Psychology and Therapy36:35 Integrating Tradition and Modern Psychology39:17 The Limitations of Modern Therapy41:03 The Importance of Community and Nature43:14 Rediscovering Meaning in Suffering48:17 Humility and Tradition in Faith51:37 Cultural Strategies for Change

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Hello there,

It’s been a while (I’m sorry) but the Plato’s Republic lectures are back!

Before the end of the year we will be getting through the last books 7-10, and if you want to catch up on the lectures so far here is the link:

In this lecture on book 7 we will discuss the following:

The Digression of books 5-6, including the images of the sun, divided line and the Cave.
The cave as an image of education — reorienting the soul from shadows and appearances toward reality.
Tracking the prisoner’s painful ascent from images to objects to intelligible forms and ultimately to the Good as the source of intelligibility.
The return to the cave, where the enlightened person is mocked and potentially killed, linking this to Socrates’ fate.
Drawing on John Vervaeke, Karl Jaspers’ Axial Age, and concepts like salience, enkrateia, and sophrosyne, framing the ascent as moral and attentional training.
Finally, we compare the Cave Allegory to Social Media and The Matrix, comparing the modern and ancient perspectives on transcendance.

00:00 Lecture 700:22 Recap and Digression05:41 Inside the Cave10:51 Climbing to Sunlight12:47 Divided Line Revisited18:31 Source of Intelligibility21:26 Return and Resistance23:50 Axial Age and Two Worlds27:11 How to leave the Cave 33:00 Social Media as the Cave33:46 The Matrix Retells the Cave39:15 Plato vs Matrix on Happiness

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Howiye!

In this podcast, I talk to Dr. Zachary Porcu about his book, Journey to Reality: Sacramental Life in a Secular Age. We discuss why the modern secular worldview stops people from understanding ancient faiths, how Dr Zak explains these categories and concepts to his students, and the spiritual and ethical consequences of secularism.

Get the book: https://www.amazon.ie/Journey-Reality-Sacramental-Life-Secular/dp/1955890625Get the course: https://zacharyporcu.substack.com/

Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Journey to Reality02:32 The Need for a Pre-Catechism05:37 Understanding Religion and Worldviews10:55 The Challenge of Changing Categories15:44 Engaging with Cultural Contexts19:16 The Role of the Internet in Faith26:33 The Future of Catechism and Pre-Catechism32:18 Exploring Orthodox Masterclasses34:12 Practical Lifestyle Changes for Spiritual Growth37:14 The Impact of Technology on Attention and Thought40:50 The Dystopian Future of Technology and AI46:49 The Church's Response to Secularization50:17 The Meaning Crisis and Mental Health54:27 The Shallow Nature of Modernity and Hedonism

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Hello!

I’m back with another podcast on the faith in Ireland/signs of renewal. This time I’m speaking with Robert Nugent from the Catholic Man YouTube channel.

In this podcast we discuss the resurgence of faith among young people, the importance of authentic community, and practical steps to renew the Catholic Church in Ireland. We also explore how the Holy Spirit is working silently amidst crises, the role of prayer groups, and innovative ways to foster faith in a modern context.

Key topics include:

The rising interest in faith among Generation Z and the signs of renewal within the church
The perceived crisis in the Catholic Church: challenges and signs of hope
The role of community, prayer groups, and faith in action to foster spiritual growth
Innovative approaches like faith-based pilgrimage walks and lay-led prayer groups
The importance of spiritual mentorship, formation, and authentic friendship in faith development
How Orthodox monastic traditions exemplify community and faith renewal in practice
The need for modern digital strategies, such as QR codes and online faith formation, to connect with seekers
The significance of sacramentally driven transformation—understanding theosis and spiritual purity
Practical steps for integrating faith into everyday life: confession, prayer, humility, and community

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Personal Connections

02:32 The Resurgence of Faith Among Gen Z

07:16 The Role of Community in Faith Formation

11:51 Challenges in Engaging with the Church

11:56 Building Intentional Faith Communities

17:43 Learning from Other Faith Traditions

22:54 Building Community Through Faith

25:42 The Challenge of Faith Formation

27:47 Transformational Faith and Theosis

35:30 The Role of Sacraments in Transformation

41:20 The Importance of Humility in Faith

Best,

Mahon.

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Hey hey, it’s been a while!!

We are back with another explosive podcast conversation with Mr Jordan Bates:

Jordan is the Founder of Council of Kings. He’s a father, husband, co-founder of Apotheosis, men’s leadership coach, and the author of six books. Jordan has been immersed in transformational work for fifteen years and in Men’s Work for the past six years, training with respected leaders and organizations in the space. He is repeatedly humbled and honored to witness the depth, beauty, and power of this work—and to contribute to the formation of the God-led masculine leaders our world truly needs.

Join Jordan’s upcoming ‘Rise of the Kings’ programme (starts April 1st): https://councilofkings.co/rise-of-kings

In this podcast, we discuss the plight of young men in the modern age from unclear gender roles to pornography and technology. Then we discuss how to find your place in the world, the skills and virtues you need and Jordan’s model for becoming the man you could be. Finally, we discuss the ideal man (Christ) and how Jordan’s own journey from cradle Catholic to wandering nomad and back to the faith inspires his men’s work. Check it out 👇

Chapters:

00:00 Meet Jordan Bates

00:26 Why Mens Work

03:57 Modern Male Isolation

08:07 Purpose In A Meta Crisis

11:27 Service Over Introspection

14:07 Missing Rites Of Passage

16:09 Brotherhood And Retreats

19:39 Finding In Person Community

24:30 Christ As North Star

31:14 Hierarchy Of Values

33:30 Attention As Worship

35:14 Ora Turning Life To Prayer

36:41 Leaving Church Finding Mysticism

43:03 Family Life Brings Christ Back

47:00 Dogma Structure And Fire

52:48 Practices For Holy Spirit Experience

54:35 Mini Monasteries And Centering Prayer

59:24 Ritual Without Living Faith

01:02:30 Breaking Materialism With Soul Tech

01:06:51 Final Reflections And Outro

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In this conversation, we explore the connections between the biblical concepts of heaven and earth and Platonic categories of form and matter, discussing how these ideas can be mapped onto contemporary understandings of reality. The dialogue emphasises the importance of symbolic language in conveying deeper truths and the challenges of communicating these concepts in a modern context. We also examine the nature of the soul, the influence of spirits, and the dynamics of agency in relation to higher patterns of existence.Get the "Post-reductionist christianity" book: https://store.thesymbolicworld.com/products/post-reductionist-christianity-a-way-out-of-the-meaning-crisis

Chapters:00:00 Exploring Heaven and Earth: A Comparative Analysis09:47 The Role of Symbolic Language in Theology17:52 Understanding Heaven: Bridging the Secular and the Sacred25:08 Patterns of Influence: The Higher Powers in Culture30:00 The War of Spirits in Technology32:17 Divine and Unholy Spirits: A Duality37:26 The Nature of Good and Evil Spirits41:35 Agency and Patterns: The Human Condition44:06 Understanding the Soul in a Christian Context

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In this conversation, Paula shares her transformative journey from a typical Irish Catholic upbringing to a profound encounter with God that reshaped her faith. She discusses the struggles of returning to her roots after years abroad, the significance of confession, and her evolving understanding of the Catholic Church's teachings on women. Paula reflects on the challenges modern women face, the impact of feminism, and the importance of compassion in welcoming others into the faith. Join Paula's Substack at: https://truthofthewomb.substack.com/

Chapters:00:00 Journey of Faith: From Doubt to Belief03:47 Cultural Influences: Exploring Spirituality Abroad06:41 Encountering God: A Transformative Experience09:47 Returning Home: Navigating Loss and Faith13:00 Reconnecting with Catholicism: A Personal Journey15:52 Confession: A Path to Healing and Renewal18:49 Understanding the Church: A New Perspective21:51 Feminism and Faith: Reconciling Beliefs24:41 Natural Family Planning: The Church's Wisdom27:46 Embracing the Catholic Faith: A New Identity33:35 Misconceptions About Women in the Church35:17 The Role of Women in Faith38:37 Cultural Shifts and Women's Identity40:14 Feminism and Women's Empowerment43:26 Contraception and Its Impact on Women46:28 Challenges for Women in the Catholic Church49:37 Navigating Faith and Personal Struggles53:31 Finding Community in the Catholic Faith58:44 Opportunities for Growth in the Church

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Fr Gavan Jennings is a priest of Opus Dei, the editor of the position papers, and a presenter ⁨@ctmcatholic⁩ .

In this conversation, we explore the evolving landscape of faith in Ireland, discussing the gradual decline of religious practice, the crisis of meaning in modern society, the importance of intellectual engagement in strengthening faith, the significance of personal relationships with God and the journey towards theosis, highlighting the role of laypeople in revitalising the Catholic Church and the joy that comes from living a life aligned with faith.

*We had some technical difficulties hence Fr Gavan's miraculous background change halfway through.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Father Gavan Jennings

00:56 The Decline of Faith in Ireland

04:09 Cultural Identity and Catholicism

10:08 The Importance of Personal Faith

15:36 Intellectual Challenges Facing the Church

18:14 The Role of Catholic Intellectuals

28:20 Faith and Reason: A Balanced Approach

32:33 The Intellectual Crisis in Catholicism

39:26 The Role of Philosophy in Faith

47:42 Revitalizing Faith in Modern Ireland

54:29 Theosis: The Goal of the Christian Life

01:00:50 The Path to Sanctity and Happiness

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The last podcast before a break over the Christmas!

More than delighted to be joined by Fr Columba Jordan for an unofficial Christmas special. Fr Columba is a Franciscan Friar of the renewal ( ⁨@cfr_franciscans⁩ ), and a presenter at Call To More ( ⁨@ctmcatholic⁩ ).In this conversation, shares his journey as a Franciscan priest, challenges faced by young people in connecting with their faith, entering the dance with God, St Maximilian Kolbe and sacrifice and love, practical steps for encountering God, and the role of the internet and artificial intelligence in the return to faith.

Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Father Columba02:56 Journey to the Priesthood05:51 Engaging the Youth: Addressing Boredom in Faith08:49 The Challenge of Familiarity in Faith12:02 The Proposal of Faith: A Call to Verify14:58 The Dance of Faith: Openness and Surrender17:53 The Role of Entertainment in Worship20:59 The Nature of Relationships and Vulnerability24:01 Shame and Its Impact on Faith26:55 The Journey of Growth and Transformation34:29 The Decline of Irish Catholicism36:19 Understanding God: Love and Justice39:39 The Image of God and Its Impact42:37 Living the Faith: A Personal Journey45:49 The Risk of Faith49:41 The Role of Doubt and Verification52:39 Surrendering to God56:12 The Power of Sacrifice01:00:06 Every Action Matters01:04:23 Practical Steps to Encounter God01:07:39 Entering the Dance of Faith01:10:24 The Role of Humility in Spiritual Growth01:11:42 The Impact of Prayer and Community01:12:10 The Intersection of Technology and Faith01:18:49 AI and the Future of Humanity01:25:06 The Internet as a Tool for Evangelization

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Hey There,

New podcast on deck 🚨

This was an unbelievable conversation with Brendan Graham Dempsey on his new ‘evolution of meaning’ series!!

Evolution of Meaning part 1: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Universal-Learning-Process-Evolution-Meaning/dp/B0D88CV4GP

Evolution of Meaning part 2:https://www.amazon.com/Psyche-Symbolic-Learning-Evolution-Meaning/dp/B0FPV8M3Z8/In this conversation, we explored the themes of meaning, the meaning crisis, and the evolution of meaning through various philosophical and cultural lenses. We discuss the impact of nihilism, the role of metamodernism, and the significance of complexity theory in providing a foundation for meaning. With a new foundation in place, we explore a modern path to transcendence, the hero’s journey and the sacred! Check it out 👇

Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Evolution of Meaning02:18 Understanding the Meaning Crisis05:15 Philosophical Perspectives on Meaning08:34 The Role of Transcendence in Meaning11:31 Exploring Meaning in Life Literature14:26 The Journey Towards Meaning17:25 Complexity Theory and Meaning20:42 Active Inference and Meaning27:25 Understanding Surprise and World Models29:32 The Complexity of Human Models32:27 Cultural Evolution and Meaning Systems34:09 Moral Development and Complexity39:02 Human Learning as a Complexification Process44:48 The Role of Egocentrism in Meaning Making50:48 The Meaning Crisis and Anomie53:30 Breaking Frames: The Role of Technology and Social Media56:32 The Meta Frame: Embracing Chaos and Complexity59:40 Transcendence and Awe: The Sacred in Frame Breaking01:02:36 The Infinite Journey: Icons, Myths, and the Divine01:06:28 Faith and the Hero’s Journey: Navigating Uncertainty01:09:34 Learning and Meaning: The Evolution of Understanding

My new book Waiting For The Offo will be out next Monday 1/12/25!!!!

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David Quinn, is a columnist for the Sunday Independent/Irish Catholic and Commentator on society, religion and politics since 1994.

Iona Institute Poll: https://ionainstitute.ie/big-revival-of-interest-in-religion-among-many-young-people-in-northern-ireland-says-new-poll/

In this conversation, David Quinn discusses the current state of Irish Catholicism, reflecting on its historical context and the evolving perspectives of younger generations towards religion. He emphasises the importance of religion in providing meaning, purpose, and community, especially in a society facing increasing secularisation. Quinn highlights signs of hope among younger people who are becoming more open to religion, suggesting a potential resurgence in religious engagement as they seek answers to life’s challenges.

Chapters:

00:00 The Evolution of Irish Catholicism

12:05 The Church’s Influence and Secularisation in Ireland

19:54 Generational Perspectives on Religion and Progress

24:40 Woke Ideology vs. Christianity: A Cultural Clash

32:25 The Crisis of Modernity and Mental Health

33:10 The Role of Religion in Society

34:11 Rediscovering the Great Tradition

35:01 Perceptions of Church vs. Christianity

37:53 Distinguishing Between Institution and Faith

40:12 Rationality and the Existence of God

42:31 The Shift from Default Theism to Atheism

44:40 The Changing Landscape of Belief

47:35 Materialism and Free Will

49:16 Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity

51:01 Demographic Shifts and Religion’s Role

55:47 Signs of Hope Among Younger Generations

Waiting For The Offo is coming out on 1/12/25!!!

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Robert Freese converted to Catholicism in 2020 after 20 years of practicing and eventually teaching Vipassana meditation. He and his wife Gosia are volunteers in the Faustinium, the lay order of Saint Faustina who initiated the devotion to Divine Mercy.

In this conversation, Robert shares his profound journey from a secular upbringing in Texas to exploring Buddhism and eventually returning to Catholicism. He discusses the influence of his family background, the transformative power of meditation, and the importance of community in spiritual practices. Robert reflects on his experiences with Vipassana meditation, the challenges of balancing spiritual commitments with worldly responsibilities, and the ongoing quest for self-discovery and meaning in life. In this conversation, Robert Freese shares his profound journey of faith, detailing his experiences of encountering Jesus during meditation, the integration of his Buddhist practices with Catholicism, and the transformative power of suffering and grace. He reflects on the significance of communion, confession, and the importance of bringing one’s suffering to God, emphasising the deep connection between personal experiences and spiritual growth.

Chapters

00:00 Journey of Spiritual Exploration

10:11 The Shift to Buddhism

19:57 Deepening the Practice

29:49 Teaching and Transformation

39:57 Navigating Challenges in Spiritual Life

49:51 Encountering Jesus in Meditation

54:00 The Cross and Personal Suffering

58:08 Navigating Faith and Personal Crisis

01:01:22 The Journey to Catholicism

01:07:20 Integrating Buddhism and Catholicism

01:14:14 Desire, Suffering, and Spiritual Growth

01:20:50 The Role of Confession and Grace

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Martin McManus is a Lukewarm Catholic to anti-Catholic psychology postgrad to schismatic traditionalist to now a normal Catholic devoted to Our Lady and working to help others back to their home, the Catholic Church.

In this conversation, Martin shares his profound journey from a lukewarm Catholic upbringing in Longford to a period of atheism influenced by modern psychology and prominent atheists. He discusses his struggles with nihilism and the eventual rediscovery of faith, sparked by the works of Jordan Peterson and his experiences in the mental health field. Martin emphasizes the importance of community and tradition in his return to Catholicism, particularly through the Legion of Mary, and advocates for sharing faith with love and understanding.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Martin’s Journey

02:39 Early Catholic Upbringing and Its Impact

05:34 Drifting Away from Faith and Academic Pursuits

08:27 Encountering Atheism and Intellectual Influences

11:12 The Shift Towards Seeking Meaning

13:56 Exploring Freedom and Reality

16:44 The Role of Jordan Peterson in Rediscovering Faith

19:42 The Paradox of Freedom and Responsibility

22:34 Finding Harmony in Faith and Reality

28:04 Awakening to Faith

30:20 Exploring Different Christian Denominations

32:04 The Search for Truth in Catholicism

35:09 Understanding the Magisterium

38:29 The Role of Doctrine and Tradition

40:49 Living Out the Faith in Modern Times

47:15 Engaging with the Legion of Mary

52:32 Encouragement for Faith Sharing

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In this lecture, we delve into the Good!

Particularly Plato’s analogy of the Sun, and the Divided Line from ‘The Republic’ to explain the un-hypothetical first principle of everything. After a quick re-cap of the Philosopher Kings, we discuss the change from politics to philosophy in the Republic book six. Plato’s analogy of the ship for the state, and why Philosophers know appearance from Reality and the three roles of the Good in Plato’s ethics, epistemology and ontology. Finally, the lecture summarises the dialectic process leading to the Form of the Good, emphasising its critical role in understanding reality and achieving a just society.

Chapters:

00:00 Plato’s Good and the Divided Line

00:26 Philosophers as Kings

02:39 The Analogy of the Ship

04:13 Corruption and Education

07:17 The Form of the Good

09:18 The Sun and the Divided Line

17:21 The Nature of Ultimate Reality

19:23 Conclusion and Next Steps

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In this fifth installment of Mahon McCann’s lecture series on Plato’s Republic, we delve into Book Five to explore one of Plato’s most influential and controversial ideas: philosopher kings. McCann, a philosophy PhD researcher and lecturer, breaks down the concepts of love of wisdom, the distinction between appearance and reality, and the significance of forms in understanding true knowledge. This episode specifically addresses why Plato argues that philosophers should be rulers and provides an in-depth analysis of the philosopher king’s characteristics and their ability to discern real justice from mere appearances.

Chapters:

00:00 Philosopher Kings in Book Five of Republic

00:17 Overview of Book Five

01:02 The Concept of Philosopher Kings

02:21 Philosophy vs. Politics

02:59 The Nature of Philosophical Love

05:04 Plato’s Theory of Forms

13:48 Conclusion: Why Philosophers Should Be Kings

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In this conversation, Mahon McCann and Dom from @thelogosproject7 delve into the complexities of modernity, its impact on religion, and the Catholic response to contemporary challenges. They explore the historical context of modernity, the secular-religious divide, and the implications of the Renaissance on individualism and philosophy. The discussion highlights the need for a return to a relational ontology that integrates theology and philosophy, emphasizing the importance of tradition in addressing modern issues. Check out dom’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thelogosproject7

Chapters:

00:00 Exploring Modernity and Its Challenges

06:52 The Crisis of Religion in Modernity

14:03 The Renaissance and Its Impact on Philosophy

20:54 The Catholic Response to Modernity

33:41 Revisiting Nature and Supernature in Theology

33:59 The Nature of Supernature

37:42 The Second Vatican Council and Its Impact

42:17 Overcoming Dualisms in Modern Philosophy

46:51 The Role of Plato and Aquinas in Modern Thought

52:39 Blondel and Ulrich: Philosophical Giants

56:39 The Future of Theology and Philosophy

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This video explores the 'Meaning Crisis,' a profound cultural and historical phenomenon affecting mental health and existential stability in the West. Drawing inspiration from John Vervaeke's extensive lecture series and works, we delve into the scientific revolution, materialism, and their impacts on traditional cosmologies and personal worldviews. The discussion highlights key figures like Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo, and Jordan Peterson, analysing their contributions and effects on modern thought. The video also addresses the resurgence of interest in Christianity, proposing that a reclamation of the core Christian structure could solve the ongoing crisis. The conversation touches upon the role of online media in fostering new avenues for faith and community, suggesting a pivotal moment for re-evangelising secular spaces.

Talk was given at the Legion of Mary Young Adult Apologetics conference in Dublin, 2025.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in the talk are the speaker's own and do not represent any of the thinkers mentioned or John Verveake's original framing of the meaning crisis.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to the Meaning Crisis

00:20 John Verveake and the Historical Context

02:14 Scientific Revolution and Its Impact

03:57 Materialism and Its Consequences

05:20 The Mechanical Universe and Nihilism

11:27 Reconnecting Morality and Mythology

15:57 21st Century Revival and Online Influence

21:46 Challenges and Opportunities for Modern Evangelism

23:58 Q&A and Personal Reflections

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In the fourth part of our lecture series on Plato's Republic, we delve into Plato's concept of the tripartite psyche and the four cardinal virtues. We explore how the three parts of the psyche—the appetite, the rational self, and Thymos—interact and often conflict with one another, causing inner turmoil. Plato's model is foundational for many subsequent theories in psychology, from Freud to modern generative and predictive processing models. Learn how Plato's notion of justice as psychological integration provides a framework for reducing inner conflict and fostering alignment among the different parts of the psyche, ultimately leading to a more harmonious and connected existence.

A good deal of the content from this lecture is inspired by John Verveake's Awakening From the Meaning Crisis Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neDutbcedUY&ab_channel=JohnVervaeke

Introduction to the series: https://youtu.be/TZ8_rQNFfLU

Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Plato's Republic Lecture Series 00:56 The Appetite: Immediate Desires and Motivations 02:42 Thymos: The Social and Emotional Self 07:54 Consequences of Inner Conflict and Injustice 10:31 Conclusion: The Intrinsic and Consequential Good of Justice

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Jordan Hall is a philosopher, futurist, and recently, a Christian. He played a significant role in the digital media landscape at MP3.com and later as the founder and CEO of DivX, a company instrumental in the online digital video revolution. After this, Hall focused on stopping the “Meta-crisis” and co-founded the Game B movement, seeking alternative societal structures to address systemic challenges.

Summary

In this conversation, Mahon McCann and Jordan Hall explore the concept of the meta-crisis, emphasising its roots in spiritual warfare and the breakdown of modernity. They discuss the implications of digital culture on virtue, identity, and community, advocating for a return to the sacred and the importance of accountability in the digital realm. The dialogue highlights the need for reconciliation among Christians and the transformative power of faith in navigating contemporary challenges.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Context of the Meta Crisis

02:45 Understanding the Nature of the Meta Crisis

05:46 The Role of Spirituality in Crisis

08:49 Virtue vs. Virtue Signaling in the Digital Age

12:05 Transitioning from Modernity to Digital Age

15:01 Digital Identity and the Commons

18:01 The Need for Accountability in Digital Spaces

20:55 The Sacred and the Governance of Digital Identity

24:09 Reconnecting with the Sacred in a Digital World

27:00 The Foundation of Virtue and Relationship with God

31:33 The Nature of Virtue and Conviction

34:08 Grounding in Relationship with God

36:44 The Challenge of Modernity and Faith

39:36 Understanding Faith as Relationship

43:25 Restoring Meaning and Language

47:28 The Weight of Responsibility in Faith

51:13 The Process of Growth and Transformation

52:51 Navigating the Meta Crisis

56:15 The Spiritual Challenge of Growth

58:43 Listening to God and Mutual Commitment

01:00:05 The Dance of Relationships and Digital Encounters

01:03:00 The Challenge of Love and Presence

01:05:56 Hierarchy and Leadership in Crisis

01:08:55 The Universal Church and Reconciliation

01:12:10 The Role of Tradition and Interpretation

01:18:01 The Call to Action and Personal Mission

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Colin Deyoung is a personality psychologist, personality neuroscientist, the creator of the Cybernetic Big Five Personality theory and professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota.

Adam Safron, Ph. D., is a Cognitive Scientist and psychologist who studies the nature of preferences and motivation from mechanistic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. Recently, he has proposed a model of embodied agency and free will and is working on a unified mechanistic account of psychedelics.

This conversation delves into the complex nature of the self, exploring its psychological, philosophical, and practical implications. The discussion begins with the distinction between the 'I' and 'me' aspects of self, as articulated by William James, and extends to the illusory nature of self as viewed in Buddhist philosophy. The speakers examine how consciousness functions as a model that shapes our understanding of reality and the self. They also discuss the importance of values in defining identity and the challenges of integrating conflicting goals. The conversation concludes with reflections on the implications of selfhood in the context of artificial intelligence and future developments.

Check out the papers:

https://journals-sagepub-com.dcu.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1177/10888683221083777

Timestamps:

00:00 Exploring the Concept of Self

07:07 The I and the Me: Understanding Selfhood

10:40 Epistemology vs. Ontology: The Nature of Consciousness

18:03 Illusions of Self and Consciousness

22:45 The Role of Consciousness in Action

34:28 Transformations of Self: Continuity and Change

36:36 The Nature of Self and Values

39:12 Core Values and Personality

41:03 Understanding Self Through Values

43:58 The Journey of Self-Discovery

46:32 Integration and Self-Realization

49:22 The Role of Goals in Self-Understanding

54:05 AI, Selfhood, and Alignment

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In this conversation, Father Benedict McGlinchey ( ⁨@irishdominicans⁩ ) shares his journey to becoming a Dominican friar, reflecting on his upbringing in Northern Ireland, the impact of a positive Catholic experience, and the challenges posed by secularism and new atheism. He discusses the importance of intellectual rigor in faith, the revival of interest in spirituality among younger generations, and the need for creating spaces for divine encounters in modern life. The dialogue emphasizes the search for meaning and happiness in a world increasingly detached from traditional religious practices.

Chapters:

00:00 Journey to Faith: A Personal Background

11:06 The Role of Positive Experiences in Faith

13:50 Cracks in the Foundation: The Decline of Faith

17:29 Political Context and Its Impact on Faith

20:01 The Rise of Secularization and New Atheism

20:19 Materialism vs. Spirituality: The Celtic Tiger Effect

22:07 Transitioning from Law to Religious Life

23:40 A Journey of Faith and Illness

25:47 Reevaluating Life Choices

26:43 Discovering Dominican Spirituality

28:35 The Role of Preaching in Modern Faith

32:15 The Shift in Cultural Perception of Faith

35:05 The Revival of Faith in Contemporary Society

40:20 Experiencing the Divine in Modern Life

43:31 Creating Spaces for Spiritual Experience

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Jean-Philippe Marceau is a writer and podcaster with an academic background in mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophy of mind. He is the author of "Post-reductionist Christianity: A Way Out of the Meaning Crisis" published with the Symbolic World Press. He is a regular contributor to the Symbolic World blog and acted as its editor-in-chief for many years since its conception.

Get the Book: https://store.thesymbolicworld.com/products/post-reductionist-christianity-a-way-out-of-the-meaning-crisis

In this conversation, Mahon McCann and JP explore the themes of reductive materialism, its critiques, and the implications for understanding consciousness, rationality, and the human condition. They discuss the emergence of higher-level properties in science, the role of classical metaphysics, and how these ideas relate to the meaning crisis in contemporary society. The discussion culminates in the assertion that Christianity, particularly through the lens of the Eucharist, provides a solution to the meaning crisis, offering a path back to community and meaning in a world increasingly dominated by materialism.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Reductive Materialism

04:48 Flaws of Reductive Materialism

10:13 Arguments Against Reductionism

20:35 Emergence in AI and Science

23:11 Philosophical Challenges to Materialism

28:08 Classical Metaphysics vs. Reductive Materialism

39:54 Anthropology and the Human Condition

43:32 Patterns of Existence and Higher Realities

46:13 The Role of Higher Patterns in Overcoming Sin

49:28 Classical Metaphysics and Its Relation to Christianity

52:28 The Limits of Philosophical Arguments for Christianity

56:21 Zombies as a Metaphor for Materialism

01:02:04 The Eucharist: A Solution to the Meaning Crisis

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Howiyeee,

Got to join Jacob Kishere of the Sensespace podcast and Resonant Man project on his Culture Pilgrim Substack. We discussed the continuing strange return of Christianity and my own conversion to Catholicism. We dive into some other topics including the Meta-Crisis and meaning crisis, psychedelics and transformative practises, the liminal web and performative Christianity!

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This is the third part of a series unpacking Plato's Republic. This episode dives into Book Three, focusing on the critique of Greek literature, the educational program divided into music and physical training, the introduction of the rulers from the warrior class, and the famous 'Noble Lie' that establishes the city's caste system. Discover how Plato criticises the Homeric myths, redefines moral standards, and proposes a structured society with an emphasis on ethical and harmonious living.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Plato's Republic Series

00:17 Overview of Book Three

04:06 The Role of Imitation in Education

09:55 Selection and Role of the Rulers

11:39 The Noble Lie and Caste System

Introduction:

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

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Best,

Mahon.

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Fr Conor McDonough (@thewhitestone) is a Dominican Friar and Phd Student in the national university of Galway on “The Letters of St Paul in Early Irish Christianity”. He is an educator and communicator of the Catholic faith and frequently features in videos from the Irish Dominicans youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@irishdominicans

In this podcast we explore the current state of Irish Catholicism, highlighting its decline in practice and the alienation of many from the church. We discuss the lack of basic knowledge among self-identified Catholics, the impact of scandals on trust in the church, and the absence of beauty in liturgical practices. However, there is hope in the revival of the faith online and particularly among younger generations. We discuss the impact of modern thinkers like Jordan Peterson on the perception of religion, the spiritual awakening of Gen Z, and the search for truth, beauty, and goodness in a secular world.

Check it out 👇

Chapters:

00:00 The Current State of Irish Catholicism

02:53 Decline and Alienation from the Church

05:53 Cultural Conformity and Choreography Catholicism

08:52 The Intellectual Tradition and Lack of Curiosity

11:57 The Shift in Attitudes Towards Catholicism

14:49 Historical Context of Irish Catholicism

18:10 The Impact of Secularization on Faith

20:57 Personal Experiences and Conversations about Faith

24:05 The Search for Meaning in a Secular Age

27:54 The Crisis of Faith in Modern Society

29:51 Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in Catholicism

32:59 The Impact of Scandals on Faith

36:00 Personal Faith Amidst Institutional Failures

39:03 Spirituality Beyond Traditional Religion

41:50 The Role of Online Communities in Faith

44:54 Generational Shifts in Spirituality

48:02 Rediscovering Faith in a Digital Age

50:59 The Search for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness

53:54 The Importance of Community in Faith Practice

58:37 The Role of Religious Practices in Modern Society

01:00:41 Bridging Divides: The Importance of Community

01:02:07 Engaging the Youth: The Church's Response to New Interest

01:05:53 Navigating Challenges: The Journey Back to Faith

01:08:27 Cultural Reflections: Literature and the Search for Meaning

01:12:41 The Quest for Truth: Artistic Expressions of Faith

01:16:43 Overcoming Prejudices: The Journey Towards Acceptance

01:20:42 Building Community: Resources and Recommendations for Young Adults

Best,

Mahon.

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This easter Saturday I will be baptised as a Catholic in Dublin! This baptism is really the fruition of a spiritual journey which has taken my whole thirty years of life thus far, but in this talk I tried to condense that journey into a testimony to share some of the main points along the way.

Essentially, all the work on this Substack and the Youtube has been leading up to this decision: Charting the failure of the mechanistic philosophy, the resulting meaning crisis, and the variety of jigs and reels which vie as a replacement worldview to re-home people in the liminal web and beyond. I did for awhile buy into the idea we were going to make ‘something new’, a “religion that is not a religion”. But when I finally understood Christianity and particularly it’s neoplatonic underpinnings, this project seemed entirely unnecessary and to be honest, foolish. Hopefully this talk might be of some use to you on your own spiritual quest, or offer hope for those who worry about the declining fortunes of Christianity and Catholicism (although these seem to be reversing).

Unfortunately because the talk was only five minutes, I couldn’t really get into the philosophical nitty gritty of my decision and the rational behind the move. However, over the next few months, and throughout the Plato’s Republic course, I will share a few essays explaining the logic behind my conversion and the many, MANY, blocks which I had to overcome to become a Catholic (and coming from an extreme atheism since birth, I probably had a lot more blocks than most of you!)

I’m not advocating a nostalgic return to a perceived christian empire, but rather a taking up of the cross, the profound transformation that is offered by christ, and that this transformation is the way of out of the meaning crisis (or the second fall as the Pageau brothers refer to it). Albeit like me, we all need a lot of explaining and practising and understanding to see how the ancients saw and get over the blocks of the modern mind to re-enter christendom, which I think is the main point of my online platform now - straddling the gap between modernity and christendom with some help from the Greeks.

In entering the church and Catholicism, my personal motto is St Augustine’s Maxim of “faith seeking understanding”. I need enough faith in the tradition to offer the time, attention and sacrifices to learn and transform enough to get the understanding. It’s a bit like going to the gym, you don’t get results immediately but if you have faith in the plan and process then the results will follow. But in my limited experience so far, if you look honestly and humbly, the treasures are there to be found:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

Talk Transcript:

“Good morning, my name is Mahon and today I’m going to give you my story. By all rights I shouldn’t be here. I was born as an atheist, was never baptised or made communion or anything. I was a particularly vicious atheist and delighted in telling my friends that “God isn’t real” and that religion is all made up nonsense. As a teenager I listened to the new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and parroted their arguments to anyone who would listen. One time in particular I remember sitting very smugly in religion class in school when the Gideons came with bibles and I was the only one in the class who refused to take one, even though they were free. I was an evangelist for atheism and yet here I am, at the age of thirty, becoming a Catholic? What happened?

I was pretty happy in my assumed atheism probably until college. Where I met Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher who famously proclaimed that “God is dead”. Nietzsche worried about the problem of nihilism after the death of God, that life would become meaningless and morality impossible because all would be permitted. Certainly in college my life took on that shape, drinking every weekend to escape the despair and alienation. Nietszche’s solution to the death of god was to become the “ubermensch”, the person who was capable of creating their own values and laws. And I tried that briefly, but quickly ended up totally destroyed from binge-drinking and some life-threatening hangovers. I learned you can proclaim to be a Moral relativist but you can’t ignore the consequences of your actions forever. So Nietszche’s solution didn’t work out for me.

Modern philosophy had seemed to only make my problems worse so after college I turned to modern psychology in the hopes of something better, particularly the work of Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung. And Jung had a story about what happened in the west after the so-called death of God, that the scientific revolution had split the world in two, and that this split manifested in the minds of western people like me and you. That we had all become scientifically minded in a way but still acted out morality and rituals which we could no longer justify or understand. We had fallen into a profound cognitive dissonance in the west, and I could feel that in my own struggling journey - unable to believe in God, but not doing so well without him either?

It was one insight of Jung in particular that destroyed my lingering atheism for good. He described the Greek Polytheistic Gods as personification of emotions that could possess our minds. For example, Ares, the God of war, was a personification of anger, a powerful evolved sub-personality that could become activated and drive you to do terrible things if you weren’t careful. For some reason, it was like a key turning in a lock and suddenly I could see the meaning of these stories and myths clearly, I could translate them into things which I could understand and which I knew were real and which addressed problems which I was struggling with today. I wondered, if I could understand polytheism in this way, then what about Monotheism? And that one monotheism in particular, I’d say such terrible things about…

I like to think if I have one virtue it’s the ability to admit when I’m wrong and the more I studied monotheism, the more I realised I was really wrong. The way I was taught, it was that a big guy with a beard lived in the sky and gave out if you didn’t eat your dinner - a kind of adult santa claus. But the more I studied monotheism through the Greeks in Plato, the Hebrews in the old testament and finally, begrudgingly, the church fathers like Saint Augustine and Aquinas, the more I became convinced this was the greatest philosophy humanity had ever come up with. Ironically, the philosophy of life which I was searching for was in the last place I wanted to look, the Christian tradition…the thought dawned on me, “oh no, maybe I was becoming a Christian…”

But I still wasn’t willing to convert, even though I could intellectually justify monotheism now, there was still more to Christianity, like the church and the tradition and of course, Christ himself? How could I reconcile myself to Christ after all the terrible things I said about him? During the time when I was trying to avoid these thoughts, a certain global pandemic came along which didn’t leave room to avoid things anymore. I’ve heard of our confinement in covid described as being trapped in the “involuntary monastery”, and for me that was quite literal. I quit drinking and it felt like a kind of death, a loss of my old self and a clearing away for something new. For the first time, I started to read the bible, which I’d rejected all those years ago, and finally started to connect to the characters like Moses and Job and Christ himself. I could finally feel these stories weren’t something foreign but relatable. In some way, they were my own story.

After covid myself and my fiance decided to do the Camino De Santiago, the full 800 km from France to the edge of Spain. Me because I was wrestling with this Christian spiritual journey and for her because she really likes walking. I guess in some ways on that journey I first starting to pretend to be a christian, listening to the New Testament, going to mass and blessings but finally being moved by Christianity and christians, that resistance I had, that critical atheistic voice, just got quieter and quieter until it was gone, and all that was left was joy and peace - I could feel love again, a love like I’d never known existed. A love that came like a friendly extended hand from the sky, one which I definitely didn’t deserve, but which came anyway. It was the first time I ever experienced the Grace of God.

As we walked I imagined Christ in front of us, moving between the trees, and I’d catch glimpses of him. I think I wanted to see him face to face always, that’s the atheist dream, to look god in the eye before saying ‘alright I’ll sign the contract!’ But recently I read St Gregory of Nyessa’s book The Life of Moses, and he talks about Moses in Exodus 33:18 when he wants to see God’s face but God will only allow him to see his back. St Gregory said the reason we see God’s back and not his face is because we are meant to follow him. So I decided that I would follow him and he brought me here, to become a Catholic, and to tell people my story, to help them return home, like he did for me.”

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In this conversation, Mahon McCann and Matthew David Segall (@footnotes2Plato) explore the ongoing metaphysical revolution in science, particularly in physics and biology. They discuss the evolving understanding of causality, the philosophical implications of Kant and Plato's ideas, and the significance of the good as a foundational principle for knowledge. The dialogue culminates in a discussion on truth as participation, emphasizing the interconnectedness of human understanding and the universe

Full video 👇

Chapters

00:00 The Metaphysical Revolution in Science

06:29 The Role of Causality in Biology

12:23 Kant vs. Plato: Epistemology and Reality

19:48 The Nature of Formal Causality

26:03 The Good as the Foundation of Knowledge

32:22 Truth as Participation in Reality

36:12 The Nature of Truth as an Event

39:06 Truth and Participation: A Transformative Journey

40:30 The Virtue of the Knower in Truth Seeking

44:06 Microcosm and Macrocosm: Understanding Our Place in the Universe

50:44 Causality: Efficient vs. Final Causes in Philosophy

01:06:34 Co-Creating Truth: Trust and Transformation

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Best,

Mahon.

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In this third instalment of the series on Plato's Republic, we will be diving into Book 2 of The Republic!

The lecture explores the foundational questions posed by Glaucon and Adeimantus about the nature of justice and its value compared to injustice, Glaucon's myth of 'the ring of Gyges' and its implications on human behaviour are discussed, along with the comparison to Tolkien's narrative in 'The Lord of the Rings'. The video also examines the formation of the ideal city, Kallipolis, as an analogy for justice and the psyche. It concludes with insights into the educational program for the guardian class and Plato's critique of poets like Homer.

Watch the video below for a deep dive into one of philosophy's most enduring texts 👇

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Course Overview

00:25 Main Themes of Book Two

01:12 Glaucon's Challenge and the Nature of Goods

03:10 The Ring of Gyges and Ethical Relativism

10:34 The Ideal City and the Role of Guardians

19:06 Education and the Role of Stories

23:34 Conclusion and Next Steps

Introduction episode:

Book One:

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This might be my favourite podcast of all time, no messing around!

Dc Schindler has returned for the third time and we are discussing Plato’s critique of the images in the Republic and particularly how this applies to the internet and modern digital culture? Daring to ask the question, has the internet literally put us in Plato’s Cave?

We discuss the nature of truth and manipulation in world ever increasingly dominated by images, being trapped inside a scientistic tyranny, and how we can escape the cave and return to standing on solid ground with the Platonic conception of reality as “the good”.

A lot of the discussion is based on DC’s brilliant book “Plato’s Critique of Impure Reason” (which I highly recommend)

Check out the full video conversation (ironically in moving images…) 👇

Chapters

00:00 Plato's Critique of Images

11:21 The Digital Cave and Modern Society

18:08 Manipulation and the Search for Truth

27:30 Ego-Centrism to Good-Centrism

33:18 The Nature of Transcendence and Imminence

35:02 Navigating the Cave: Plato's Allegory and Virtue Ethics

37:49 The Pursuit of Virtues: Grace and Ideal Excellences

41:50 Understanding Forms: The Reality Beyond Physical Objects

46:42 The Role of Images: Idols vs. Icons in Perception

51:53 The Challenge of Digital Reality: Navigating the Internet's Influence

01:01:30 Finding Footholds: The Search for Meaning in a Digital Age

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Best,

Mahon.

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Dr Peter Larsen is a lecturer in Philosophy at Dublin City University, specialising in ancient philosophy and particularly the cognitive psychology of Plato and Aristotle.

In this conversation, we discusses Plato's Timaeus, exploring its themes of cosmology, the nature of the cosmos, and the relationship between natural science and ethics. We emphasizes the importance of understanding both divine and necessary causes, the role of the forms, and the overarching concept of the good in Plato's philosophy. We delve into the intersections of philosophy, science, and causation, exploring the contemplative tradition, the limitations of physicalism, and the role of teleology in understanding reality. They discuss the aims of science, the insights of Plato and Berkeley, and the implications of causation on free will and determinism, ultimately questioning the completeness of scientific explanations in light of philosophical inquiries.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Plato and the Timaeus

06:11 Exploring the Nature of the Cosmos

12:53 Divine and Necessary Causes in Natural Science

20:11 The Forms and Their Relation to Physical Reality

30:34 The Good and Its Role in Understanding Reality

35:36 Exploring the Contemplative Tradition

36:22 The Aim of Science: Beyond Physicalism

39:43 The Limits of Physicalist Natural Science

41:49 The Role of Regularities in Understanding Reality

42:19 Berkeley's Insights on Causation

45:10 Causal Hierarchies and the Divided Line

48:29 Constraints and Causality in Science

50:11 Teleology and Causation: A Philosophical Inquiry

53:11 Revisiting Plato's Causation in Modern Contexts

57:41 Understanding Causation: Necessary vs. Divine

01:01:30 The Debate on Determinism and Free Will

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Best,

Mahon.

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In this episode, we delve into Book 1 of Plato's Republic. The focus is on understanding what justice is not, through detailed analyses of dialogues and key themes. From Socrates' descent to the Piraeus symbolizing a philosophical journey into the world of appearances, we examine the contrasting definitions of justice provided by Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus. The philosophical tension between power, wisdom, and the ultimate purpose of justice is explored, setting the stage for a deeper inquiry in Book 2.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Plato's Republic

00:04 Structure of the First Dialogue

00:14 Socrates' Descent to the Piraeus

01:55 Encounter with Polemarchus

06:45 Part Three: Polemarchus' Definition of Justice

07:49 Socrates' Counterarguments

10:10 Part Four: Thrasymachus Enters the Scene

11:05 Thrasymachus' Definition of Justice

13:41 Socrates vs. Thrasymachus

18:15 The Conclusion of Book One

Want to support the mission of the Wisdom Dojo to provide philosophical training for the digital age? Then consider sharing this post or becoming a supporter below 👇

Best,

Mahon.

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Donald is a Scottish-born cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist and author, known for his work in integrating modern cognitive-behavioral therapy with Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, particularly Stoicism. He is the CEO and founder of the Plato’s Academy Center in Athens and the author of several best-selling books such as “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” and “Stoicism and the Art of Happiness”.

His latest book “How To Think Like Socrates” is the best book I’ve ever read on Socrates! It’s a delightful blend of biography, novel, philosophy and psychology and as Donald said, it’s the book he wishes he had about Socrates growing up and I’m very glad that he has written it. Highly recommend picking up a copy if you are interested in philosophy, history, psychology or just fancy a good read:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Think-Like-Socrates-Philosophy/dp/1250280508

In this conversation, we discuss the relevance of Socratic philosophy in today's world, particularly in the context of modern democracy and social media. Donald emphasises the importance of the Socratic method as a form of dialogue that serves as a therapeutic tool for self-knowledge and understanding biases. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of cognitive flexibility, the dangers of rigid thinking, and the need for a nuanced approach to self-help advice, ultimately advocating for a Socratic approach to learning and understanding.

Watch the full conversation 👇

https://youtu.be/DztbWigcO-U

Chapters:

00:00 Socratic Inspirations: A Journey Through Philosophy

10:20 The Socratic Method: Dialogue as Therapy

20:44 Socrates and the Athenian Democracy: A Timeless Relevance

30:14 Social Media and the Modern Sophists: A New Age of Rhetoric

41:50 The Impact of Social Media on Perception

43:25 The Importance of Critical Thinking

45:50 Socratic Method and Its Relevance Today

48:09 Socrates: A Model of Courage and Wisdom

50:57 Reinterpreting Socratic Dialogues for Modern Readers

54:31 The Role of Self-Help Literature in Personal Development

57:50 Cognitive Flexibility and Its Importance

01:01:10 The Dangers of Rigid Thinking

01:03:45 Navigating Self-Help Advice Wisely

01:08:01 The Socratic Approach to Learning and Understanding

Want to support the mission of the Wisdom Dojo to provide philosophical training for the digital age? Then consider sharing this post or becoming a supporter below 👇

https://www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe?gift=true

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None

The first lecture of the Plato's Republic course.

This will be the first of eleven lectures, the following lectures tracking each of the ten books of the Republic 🏛️

This lecture is an introduction to Plato and his Republic through the lens of John Vervaeke’s concept of a Meaning Crisis.

Expect to learn about:

👉 Plato's context: the Peloponnesian war, natural philosophers and the Sophists.

👉 The Meaning Crisis from @johnvervaeke and how the fall of golden age Athens is similar to the modern age

👉 Why the meaning crisis fuels existential issues, the mental health crisis and the rise of pseudo-religious ideologies

👉 How Socrates, Plato and Aristotle offer a solution to the meaning crisis through the pursuit of wisdom and rationality

This lecture and lecture series draws will draw on important secondary works on Plato such as "Plato's Critique of Impure Reason" by DC Schindler, The Awakening From the Meaning Crisis series by John Verveake and Michael Sugrues's YouTube lectures on Plato.

If you’re picking up a copy of the Republic recommend getting the G.M.A Grube edition (edited by CDC Reeves) or the Allan Bloom translation

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Plato's Republic

00:46 The Historical Context of Plato's Republic

02:31 The Rise of the Sophists

03:55 The Meaning Crisis in Ancient Athens

04:29 The Modern Meaning Crisis

08:53 The Greek Solution: Socrates and Plato

09:43 Socrates' Life and Philosophy

15:11 Plato's Life and Legacy

16:32 Interpreting Plato's Dialogues

19:24 Conclusion and Next Steps

The next lecture will be available towards the end of February. If you want to support the provision of free philosophical education and transformation, consider becoming a supporter, sharing the dojo with a friend or leaving a comment👇

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Brandon Griggs is the author of the Tech For Life Substack (check it out here https://www.techforlife.com/) exploring the central question: How do we get good at godlike technology?

In this podcast, we delve into the multifaceted relationship between technology and society, exploring the ethical implications of digital advancements, the challenges faced by digital natives, and the necessity for a universal ethical framework. The conversation emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of the digital landscape and the role of community in shaping ethical norms.

Chapters:

00:00 Exploring Technology's Impact on Humanity

06:42 The Accidental Nature of Technology

12:43 Navigating Between Digital and Non-Digital Worlds

18:43 The Challenge of Emotional Literacy in a Digital Age

24:21 Active Inference and Digital Behavior

30:23 The Future of Ethical Education in a Digital World

40:18 Contextual Understanding in Digital Spaces

45:38 Business Incentives and Algorithm Control

52:10 Trial and Error in Digital Infrastructure

57:40 Planetary Scale Computation and Governance

01:03:54 Ethics and Technology in a Complex World

Want to support the Substack? You can become a paid subscriber below 👇

https://www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe?gift=true

Best,

Mahon.

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Ben graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s flagship Mind, Language, and Embodied Cognition MSc. He is a Leverhulme-funded PhD candidate at the University of Sussex under Andy Clark's mentorship, where his research focuses on neuroscience and digital technology.

Read Ben's research here

Summary

In this conversation, we explore the concept of the meaning crisis, its implications for human agency, and the role of technology in shaping our understanding of meaning. We also discuss how active inference provides a framework for understanding the relationship between individuals and their environments, particularly in the context of education and technology. The conversation delves into the challenges posed by social media and addiction, emphasizing the need for a more nuanced approach to technology that fosters genuine meaning and well-being.

Timestamps:

00:00 Exploring the Meaning Crisis

09:23 Defining Meaning and Its Dimensions

17:57 The Role of Technology in Meaning

29:41 Education, Agency, and Active Inference

41:04 Adaptive Technology and Its Implications

52:26 Addiction, Agency, and Meaning

01:03:10 The Future of Technology and Meaning

Some key takeaways

The meaning crisis is a developmental crisis that affects our ability to find meaning in life.
Active inference offers a framework for understanding how agents interact with our environments.
Technology can both scaffold and diminish our sense of agency.
Education systems need to cultivate character traits that support meaningful living.
Addiction often arises from a lack of meaning, leading to short-term pleasure-seeking behaviors.
Gamification in technology can lead to a loss of genuine engagement and meaning.
Design strategies for technology should prioritize sincerity and transparency.
The relationship between agency and technology is complex and requires careful consideration.
Meaning can be found in both virtual and physical environments, but the nature of that meaning may differ.

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Alicia Juarrero is President and co-founder of VectorAnalytica, Inc., and Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Miami. She is the author of Dynamics in Action (MIT Press) and recently, Context Changes Everything: How constraints create coherence (2023). Grounding her work in the problem of causation, Alicia challenges previously held beliefs that only forceful impacts are causes. Constraints, she claims, bring about effects as well, and they enable the emergence of coherence.

Get the book 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262545667/

Summary:

In this conversation, we discusses 'Context Changes Everything' and the dismissal of context in philosophy. She highlights the role of context in intentions, behavior, identities, and more. Juattero explains how the reductionist worldview and the focus on bottom-up causality have led to the neglect of top-down causality and the inability to understand coherent wholes. She explores the importance of understanding wholes as emergent properties and the need to rethink ontology and epistemology. The conversation also touches on topics like artificial intelligence, evolvability, and the limitations of the mechanistic metaphor for the mind.

Full podcast 👇

https://youtu.be/a14Q1-q-NP8

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Framing

03:05 The Dismissal of Context in Philosophy

08:47 The Neglect of Top-Down Causality

15:00 Rethinking Ontology and Epistemology

21:01 The Limitations of Artificial Intelligence

22:59 The Failure of the Mechanistic Metaphor for the Mind

35:05 Imagination and Coordination

41:42 Ethics and Constraints

49:06 The Interface between Principle and Practice

54:07 The Attentional Infrastructure

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New podcast with Colin Deyoung & Adam Safron on their integration of Cybernetic Big five Personality theory and the Active Inference Framework to model persons for therapeutic purposes and possibly the creation of better AI.

Colin Deyoung is a personality psychologist, personality neuroscientist, the creator of the Cybernetic Big Five Personality theory and the associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, and a former student of Jordan Peterson.

Adam Safron, Ph. D., is a Cognitive Scientist and psychologist who studies the nature of preferences and motivation from mechanistic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. Recently, he has proposed a model of embodied agency and free will and is working on a unified mechanistic account of psychedelics.

Check out their paper!!!

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/653wp

Watch the full conversation 👇

https://youtu.be/ldrtI9CrlSU

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Cybernetics and the Free Energy Principle

11:07 The Big Five Theory in Personality Psychology

14:24 Integrating Cybernetics and the Free Energy Principle

21:08 The Motivation for Integrating Cybernetics and Personality Psychology

22:57 Personality Traits as Control Parameters in Cybernetic Systems

27:21 The Contextual Nature of Personality Traits

30:34 The Relationship Between Personality Traits and World Models

35:59 The Interplay Between Stability and Plasticity in Personality Traits

40:42 Relevance Realization and Personality Traits

43:07 The Role of Personality Traits in Solving the Frame Problem

47:13 Inactivism and Computationalism

51:20 The Role of Representation

54:41 Embodiment and Extended Cognition

59:02 Examining the Homunculus and Cartesian Theater

01:04:39 The Role of the Hippocampus

01:08:03 The Connection Between the Hippocampus and Narrative

01:12:37 Understanding Cortical Gradients

01:14:44 The Complex Relationship Between Embodiment, Self-Modeling, and Consciousness

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Ben White graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s flagship Mind, Language, and Embodied Cognition MSc. He is a Leverhulme-funded PhD candidate at the University of Sussex under Andy Clarke's mentorship, where his research focuses on neuroscience and digital technology. Mark Miller is a philosopher of Cognition: Prediction, Well-Being, and Technology and a Research Fellow at Monash University's Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies and lab manager at the Consciousness and Wisdom studies lab UoT.

In this podcast, we discuss active inference and its application to social media and technology. Ben and Mark explain how active inference provides a framework for understanding how our beliefs and expectations shape our reality. They discuss the potential dangers of social media, such as the manipulation of beliefs and the addiction to social validation. They emphasize the importance of developing attention skills, finding meaning in life, and changing ourselves and our microcultures to mitigate the negative effects of social media. Finally, the conversation explores the concept of ambient smart environments as a potential solution to the meaning crisis caused by technology addiction.

Read the "digital being" paper: https://academic-oup-com.dcu.idm.oclc.org/nc/article/2024/1/niae008/7631816#444593589

Read "ambient Smart Environments": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-024-04679-9

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Mark and Ben's Collaboration

05:02 Active Inference as a Framework for Understanding Social Media

16:03 The Dangers of Manipulation and Addiction in Social Media

23:13 Reforming Social Media: Regulation and Business Model Changes

26:35 Mitigating the Negative Effects of Social Media: Attention Skills and Meaning

31:02 Changing Ourselves and Our Microcultures to Counteract Social Media

33:51 Ambient Smart Environments: A Solution to the Meaning Crisis

36:13 Cultivating Wisdom and Skills in the Modern World

41:46 Therapeutic Applications of Ambient Technology

49:29 Designing Technology for Human Flourishing

Key Takeaways:

Active inference provides a framework for understanding how our beliefs and expectations shape our reality.
Social media platforms can manipulate our beliefs and create addictive behaviors.
Reforming social media platforms may require regulation and changes in business models.
Developing attention skills and finding meaning in life can help mitigate the negative effects of social media.
Changing ourselves and our microcultures is essential for reducing the impact of social media on our well-being. Ambient smart environments, owned by individuals, can be a solution to technology addiction and the meaning crisis.
Cultivating wisdom and developing skills are essential for navigating uncertainty and volatility.
Ambient technology can be used in therapeutic applications, such as dementia care and mental health.
Technology should be designed to support and enhance human flourishing.

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We are back with a final conversation in this AI series, bringing together John Verveake and Sam Tideman to discuss the limits of artificial intelligence.

For me, this conversation is a watershed moment in the AI debate. Based on John’s work (read the paper here ), there is a fundamental difference between the AI/computer science paradigm and human intelligence, which the current genre of artificial intelligence cannot cross! So we can stop worrying about the machines replacing us! But we need to start worrying about the delusions of those who think they’re making humanity 2.0…

This conversation delves into the profound difference between AI algorithms and relevance-realizing agents, sparking thought on the concept of relevance realization and its pivotal role in organismic agency, cognition, and consciousness. It underscores that organismic agency and cognition transcend computational nature and cannot be fully encapsulated by algorithmic approaches.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Background

08:20 The Role of Relevance Realization in Organismic Agency and Cognition

14:16 The Limitations of Current AI Models in Comprehending Purpose

25:12 Exploring the Potential for Artificial Life and Relevance Realization in AI

33:31 AI: Neither Just a Tool nor a Full-Blown Agent

37:10 The Deflation of AI and the Search for Purpose

39:29 Caring for the True, Good, and Beautiful

44:54 The Difference in Caring

48:31 Starting at the Pinnacle of Cultural Ratcheting

53:31 The Limitations of Imitation

55:47 Relevance Realizing Machines

01:02:57 Theological Considerations

01:06:38 The Sin of Displacement

01:10:45 Philosophical and Theological Reflection

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Sam Tideman is the host of Transfigured, a profound religious and philosophical thinker, and a Google data engineer.

Check out Sam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@transfigured3673

In this podcast, we are talking about the limits of artificial intelligence, social media, evolution and the cult of trans-humanism.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Skepticism of AI's Capabilities

09:12 The Challenge of Quantifying Wisdom and Enlightenment in AI

33:23 The Limitations of AI and the Need for Human Intervention

52:44 The Risks of AI Cults and the Importance of a Religious Framework

PS want to support the Wisdom Dojo?

You can sign up for a one-time gift or a monthly donation, and all funds are used to cover the running costs of the pod 👇

www.mahonmccann.com/gift

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

D. C. Schindler is professor of metaphysics and anthropology at the John Paul II Institute, Washington, DC. He is the author of eleven books, including Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty (University of Notre Dame Press, 2017) (get his books here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-C-Schindler/e/B001JRTOAU)

The podcast discusses the ontology of stories, fact vs fiction, materialism, perception, naive realism, platonism, Christianity and more.

Chapters:

00:00 The Ontological and Epistemological Status of Stories

03:34 The Separation Between Fact and Fiction

07:27 The Reductionist View of Truth

10:25 The Role of Stories in Mapping Reality

13:07 The Limitations of the Scientific Model of Reality

15:21 The Journey of Knowing and Understanding

19:06 The Misuse of the Term 'Artificial Intelligence'

21:45 The Breakdown of the Bond Between Reality and Truth

23:28 The Influence of the Enlightenment

25:45 The Role of Nominalism in the Shift in Perception of God

27:07 The Journey Towards the Really Real

29:53 The Self-Defeating Nature of Denying All Truth

31:44 Starting with What People Care About

31:57 The Inescapability of the Good

33:03 The Significance of a Troubled Conscience

34:15 The Connection Between Universal and Particular Stories

35:12 The Role of Transcendent Goodness in Drama

37:07 The Presence of Goodness in Characters

38:29 The Dramatic Power of Forgiveness

39:21 The Revelation of Character in Decisions

40:34 The Role of Goodness in Decision-Making

41:25 Truth as Disclosure and Revelation

43:30 The Loss of Meaning and the Need for Stories

44:29 The Connection Between Stories and Tradition

45:45 The Disconnect from Tradition and the Search for Meaning

46:13 Christianity as the Ultimate Story

46:56 The Parallels Between Christianity and Plato's Philosophy

48:22 The Distrust and Loss of Meaning in a Secular Culture

50:30 The Difference Between Story and Entertainment

51:50 The Relevance and Universality of Meaningful Stories

52:31 The Connection to Tradition and the Bigger Order of Things

53:27 The Anti-Traditionalism of American Culture

55:20 The Truncated Sense of Tradition in Modern Culture

57:21 The Disconnect from Wisdom and Deep Stories

58:26 The Need for a Recovery of Tradition and Meaning

PS want to support the Wisdom Dojo?

You can sign up for a one-time gift or a monthly donation, and all funds are used to cover the running costs of the pod 👇

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John is a professor of cognitive science and cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto and the creator of "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis." (check out his channel here and the PP and RR integration talk here ).

In this podcast, we are discussing

predictive processing
John’s integration of predictive processing and relevance realisation
the nature and function of attention
Attention’s relation to agency and meaning in life
How can this new understanding of human beings be used to create aligned AI

Chapters:

00:00 The Quest for Inner Peace and Optimal Agency

00:23 Welcoming John Verveke: A Dialogue on Attention and AI

00:32 Unveiling the Intricacies of Attention

00:45 Predictive Processing and Relevance Realization: A Deep Dive

01:51 Exploring the Spotlight Metaphor of Attention

02:35 Beyond the Spotlight: A New Understanding of Attention

04:04 Attention as Cognitive Unison: A Revolutionary Perspective

05:21 The Interplay of Attention and Relevance Realization

06:35 Precision Weighting: Bridging Predictive Processing and Relevance Realization

07:30 From Cause Theories to Effect Theories of Attention

09:19 The Emergence of Agency and the Role of Relevance Realization

10:13 Predictive Processing: A Framework for Anticipation

10:40 The Meta Problems of Anticipation and Relevance Realization

14:46 Predictive Processing and the Sensory Motor Loop

18:39 The Bias-Variance Trade-off in Predictive Processing

20:34 Opponent Processing and Optimal Grip: A New Model of Attention

22:52 Enhancing Agency and the Potential for Self-Deception

25:26 Agency Emerges: Autopoietic Correction and Self-Organization

27:17 Meaning as Optimal Agency: The Confluence of Predictive Processing and Relevance Realization

29:12 The Autopoietic Nature of Mind and Body

29:55 Plato's Insights on Internal Coordination

30:33 The Quest for Optimal Agency and Inner Peace

31:12 Predictive Processing and Motivation

32:23 The Role of Persuasive Technologies

32:44 Anticipation in Spatial and Temporal Contexts

34:56 Optimal Agency and Collective Intelligence

36:00 The Platonic Proposal for Human Flourishing

37:55 AI as Agents vs. AI as Environment

42:32 The Potential of AI to Foster Human Enlightenment

43:45 Mentoring Machines for a Better Future

45:18 The Challenge of Social Media Reform

46:22 The Wicked Problem of Relevance Realization

51:25 Stealing the Culture: A Bottom-Up Approach

52:36 Historical Precedents for Cultural Transformation

53:35 The Advent of a New Sacredness

57:35 Redefining Success and Addressing Existential Questions

01:01:21 The Silicon Sages: A Vision for AI

01:01:37 Concluding Thoughts and Hopeful Outlook

PS want to support the Wisdom Dojo?

You can sign up for a one-time gift or a monthly donation, and all funds are used to cover the running costs of the pod 👇

www.mahonmccann.com/gift

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

Adam Safron, Ph. D., is a Cognitive Scientist and psychologist who studies the nature of preferences and motivation from mechanistic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. Recently, he has proposed a model of embodied agency and free will and is working on a unified mechanistic account of psychedelics.

This podcast discusses free will and embodied agency, the key role of attention and imagination, and the consequences of an individual's pursuit of meaning in life.

Check out Adam's website 👇

https://www.adamsafron.com/

Google Scholar 👇

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dZOoilgAAAAJ&hl=en

The Paper discussed on embodied agency 👇

https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/783

Chapters:

00:00 Struggling with the Question of Free Will

04:14 Starting from the Fundamental Mechanics

06:34 Understanding How Agency Works

09:46 Unifying Physicalism and Idealism

12:24 Bridging the Gap Between Religion and Science

17:48 Tracing the Mechanics of Action Selection

18:16 The Evolution of Inhibition and Mental Simulation

22:19 Conscientiousness and the Ability to Inhibit Distraction

25:32 Embodied Self Models and Conscientiousness

28:02 The Connection Between Conscientiousness and Conscience

31:14 The Development of Imaginative Capacity for Agency

35:02 The Connection Between Embodied Self Models and Meaning

39:03 The Pursuit of Developmental Meaning

42:43 The Disconnect Between Fitness in Reality and Digital

43:51 The Normative Constraint of Imaginative Capacity

45:28 The Destination of Agency: Enslavement to the Highest Good

46:38 Neoplatonic Philosophy and Predictive Processing

50:29 Distributed Cognition and Democracy

51:13 Unity of the Soul and the Polis

52:11 Practical Applications of Understanding Agency

54:08 Creating Benevolent Agents

55:22 Ethics and Principles in Technology

56:19 Mission and Conclusion

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Rick Repetti is a philosophy professor, meditation teacher, and author of several publications on free will (find more of Rick's work below).

Rick’s website: https://www.rickrepetti.com/

Awaken to meaning: https://awakentomeaning.com/

American Philosophical Practitioners Association: https://appa.edu/

In this podcast, we are critiquing Sapolski’s “determined” steel manning his case with the philosophy of determinism and showing how human beings possess the “degrees of freedom worth having” and how wisdom and spiritual traditions offer tools to enhance our agency.

Check out the conversation 👇

https://youtu.be/AJGyeZkGFLo

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Sapolsky's Argument

04:19 Critique of Sapolsky's Argument

07:31 Legacy of Newtonian Causality

09:45 Determinism and Free Will

11:13 Indeterminism and Free Will

16:46 The Dialogical Self

19:40 Meditation and Self-Conditioning

26:28 Ultimate Moral Responsibility

32:37 Self-Forming Actions and Free Will

37:18 The Dialogical Self and Agency

42:02 Attention and Agency

48:00 Cultivating Agency through Meditation

51:05 Opponent Processing and Evolution

52:07 Attentional Flexibility and Imaginary Attention

53:01 Simulating Other Minds and Counterfactual Reasoning

54:07 Simulating the Future and Rational Deliberation

55:07 Taking Processes Offline and Online

56:32 Rational Agency and Thinking

57:03 Liver Enzymes and Rationality

57:29 Simulating Ideas and Writing

58:25 Inhibition and Simulation

59:33 Attentional Deficit and Meditative Practices

01:00:15 Organizing Behavior Across Time

01:01:14 Prudential Reasoning and Agency

01:02:11 Debating Sapolsky and Future Projects

01:03:37 Philosophical Practitioners Association and Book Club

01:05:43 Philosophy of Meditation Series and APA Courses

01:06:08 Weekly Meditations and Starter Ecology of Practices

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Jelle Bruineberg is an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication.

Read his paper ‘Adversarial Inference: Predictive Minds in the Attention Economy’:

https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2023/1/niad019/7251284

In this podcast, we discuss the attention economy, the psychology and cognitive science of attention, predictive processing, AI and the future of the internet.

Watch the full conversation 👇

https://youtu.be/W8BAXZVNph0

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to the Attention Economy and Adversarial Inference

06:37 Limitations of the Broadbandian Conception of Attention

08:14 The Role of Action in Attention

11:51 The Relationship Between Attention and Executive Function

15:36 External and Internal Triggers in Attention

17:28 The Role of Self-Modeling in Attention and Agency

20:28 The Impact of Digital Environments on Attention and Concentration

25:06 Precariousness of Agency and Environmental Scaffolding

27:46 The Role of Positive Affect and Dopamine in Attention

31:59 Designing Environments to Support Attention and Agency

36:29 The Influence of AI on the Attention Economy and Agency

47:17 The Role of AI in Society

48:44 The Impact of Technology on Affordances

49:13 Regulating Digital Technologies

50:12 Building Agency-Enhancing Technologies

51:30 The Need for a New Philosophy

53:55 The Challenge of a Unified Theory of Attention

55:59 Attention as a Core Cognitive Process

56:45 Rebuilding the Internet

Want to support the podcast?

Join up for a paid subscription 👇

https://www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe?gift=true

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Matthew David Segall, Phd, is a transdisciplinary researcher, writer, teacher, and philosopher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences and to the study of consciousness. He is the Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute.

Get his new book ‘Crossing The Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead’.

Check out his youtube channel Footnotes2Plato

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and the Kantian Divide

04:59 Kant's Epistemological Dualism

07:34 The Role of Imagination in Kant's Philosophy

12:00 The Impact of Nominalism on Imagination

17:28 The Connection Between Imagination and Self-Transcendence

21:07 Whitehead's Cosmology and the Role of Imagination

25:26 Transcendental Apperception and Contextualization

29:16 Whitehead's Philosophy in Historical Context

36:53 Whitehead's Panentheistic View of God

46:06 Whitehead's View on Free Will and Determinism

50:04 Whitehead's View on Human Agency and Evolution

51:08 The Open Universe and Free-will

52:16 The Vegetable Universe

56:22 Life Precedes Matter

58:07 Death as Part of Life

59:32 Overcoming the Meaning Crisis

01:00:38 The Role of Religion in Finding Meaning

01:03:38 Translating Complex Ideas

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

None

The fourth dimension of meaning in life is not reported in the psychological literature but was added by Cognitive Scientist John Veraveke, and this dimension is called ‘depth’. He describes depth as the felt sense of being connected to ‘what is most real’.

Read the full essay at www.mahonmccann.com

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Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher, literary scholar, and the world’s foremost expert on brain hemispheric differences. He has written several significant books, such as The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009) and the recent The Matter with Things (2021).

Connect with Iain 👇

https://channelmcgilchrist.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@DrIainMcGilchrist

Buy The Matter with Things 👇

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Things-Delusions-Unmaking-Paperback/dp/1914568257

Timestamps:

0:00 - intro

0:29 - Functioning of the Two Cerebral Hemispheres

1:10 - Attention in Perception and Understanding

1:45 - The Influence of Context on Perception

3:11 - Attention on Future Perception and Behavior 5:35 - Hemispheric Differences & Culture

13:39 - The Role of Attention in Understanding Reality

15:52 - Values in Perception and Attention

34:00 - The Illusion of Materialistic Satisfaction

37:51 - The Role of Dopamine and Addiction in Our Lives

47:29 - The Threat of Technology and AI on Human Relationships

50:17 - The Importance of Humanities in Education

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

None

Audio essay on the third dimension of meaning in life is called ‘significance’, which has to do with human worth, importance and value.

Read the full essay at www.mahonmccann.com

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

Chris is a philosophical writer with interests in dialogue, symbols, and the concept of self. He is a co-author of several publications, including Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis (Open Book Publishers, 2017), “Gnosis in the Second Person” (in Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds, Perspectiva Press, 2021) and “Dialectic into Dialogos and the Pragmatics of No-thingness in a Time of Crisis” (in Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2021). He is heavily involved in the work of John Vervaeke and Vervaeke foundation addressing the meaning crisis.

Check out the Vervaeke foundation: https://vervaekefoundation.org/

And the awakentomeaning practises: https://awakentomeaning.com/

In this podcast, we discuss theatre, narrative, mythology, character development, art vs propaganda, pesudo-religious ideologies (or mythologies) the barrier between fiction and facts that harms development, and much more!

Timestamps:

0:00 - intro

0:49 - Arthur Miller & The Meaning Crisis

5:47 - Imaginal play & Wisdom

7:53 - Plato understood as drama

10:38 - Stories & Virtue development

14:25 - centrality of character in ethics & narrative

18:11 - Plato’s warning against drama

23:29 - Art vs Propaganda

27:25 - Hero Meta-mythology

33:44 - Nominalist obstacles to truth

42:28 - love and socratic practice

54:51 - drama and imitating the good

01:05:38 - Miller’s writing process & logos

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

Last week, we looked at the dimension of meaning in life called coherence, and we saw what happens to mythological villains like Sisyphus and Macbeth who don't honestly pursue the adaptation and try to steal meaning in a sense. The result is a pointless life, which we want to avoid, so how can we have a point in our lives? A purpose? A valued goal? A vision of the good to orient us in the chaos and absurdity of life? This week, we will think about the dimension of meaning in life called purpose.

Check out the essay at www.mahonmccann.com

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

Rafe Kelley is the founder of Evolve, Move, Play, a movement coach, lifelong martial artist and wisdom-seeker.

He has been featured on the Jordan Peterson podcast and frequently engaged in dialogues with John Vervaeke on his Youtube Channel.

Check out his workshops: https://www.evolvemoveplay.com/

Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rafekelley/

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Last week, I introduced the new ‘Meaning in life’ series on the Wisdom Dojo Substack. As promised, for this first week, we will be dealing with the dimension of meaning in life known as ‘Coherence’.

Read the full article: www.mahonmccann.com

Get full access to Wisdom Dojo at www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe

Recap of the Series so far.

This is the final essay of the philosophical guide to self-development series. To recap what we’ve discussed so far, we began by looking at how the West is undergoing a crisis of meaning due to the collapse of the Aristotelian Christian worldview. We argued the Aristotelian Christian worldview collapsed because of the scientific revolution and increasingly global multiculturalism in the 21st century. We also pointed out that the dominant scientific worldview has no place for meaning, subjectivity, or consciousness. Thus modern individuals are stuck between a meaningless reductionist view of themselves as merely a ‘collection of atoms’ or an alternative decadent romanticism that denies the worldview of natural science in favour of ‘feelings’ and vague hedonic spirituality.

In essay ten, we discussed the characters of these two camps as fundamentalists and nihilists: fundamentalists who cling to outdated, low-resolution pictures of the world, and nihilists attempting to embrace and live with the chaos without creating any order. In this series, I have argued both are maladaptive responses to the collapse of the dominant worldview and that the adaptive response is actually captured in the hero meta-mythology. We spent quite a long time sketching out the general pattern of the hero meta-mythology on how one confronts chaos and makes new habitual order, and why the hero meta-mythology is a narrative description of John Vervaekes relevance realisation, so we won’t go into too much in this essay (check out these ones for a recap).

Like most of my work, this series is aimed at non-academics, particularly for people who have experienced alienation, despair, nihilism, meaninglessness and other existential issues to present an alternative and more viable interpretation of life. This aim presents challenges, and limitations on delving into ontology and the philosophical weeds, which I have realised as writing this, go deeper than I even thought. I hope in future works to lay out more clearly the proposed ontology, epistemology and ethics - as a more complete philosophy. But the importance of this series is a synthesis of philosophy and Myth for meaning-making in life.

Our interpretation of life, ourselves and our growth and development in the world has profound consequences for one’s emotional well-being, success, and satisfaction in life. Philosophy & Myth are two ways of upgrading the sophistication of one’s interpretation of life - albeit on different levels of analysis. To discuss an interpretation of life, one has to address the existential questions at the bottom of that interpretation, questions like: who are we? What is human nature? Function and identity? Who should we be? Ethical questions of virtues and vices, desirable and undesirable characteristics and ultimately, the good life? And finally, how do we go from one to another which raises questions of individual transformation? The providence of Myth and narrative, which straddles the line between generalisable stories of transformation, universal human nature, and one’s particular, individual existence. That's where the tension lies between our individual, highly contextual lives and then these broader, intergenerational generalisable patterns of successful adaptations, which we call myths. I believe it is the work of artists and philosophers to unite the two into one.

In the last three essays, we looked at Peterson’s synthesis of Rene Magritte’s ‘Son of Man’ painting as an image of the modern meaning crisis-stricken individual akin to the ‘fallen’ person in the Christian story. We discussed how this character was trapped within a narrow categorical identity and their vision blocked by the knowledge of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, with no genuine path to Transcendence. In the following essay, we argued that meaning is not an epi-phenomenon but is, in fact, the instinct that orients us to the zone of proximal development where self-transformation takes place. It is at that border of order and chaos where we experience deep meaning and where the myths and hero stories are orienting us towards zones of significant error recognition and error-correction results in deep personal transformation.

In keeping with Platonic philosophy, we argued that these personal transformations, through the cultivation of virtues, like character traits or skills, cause a general increase in wisdom which decreases self-destruction and self-deception and, therefore, illusion, connecting one to reality. In this sense, Transcendence leads to truth and reality through wisdom and meaning and is not just a psychological improvement but an epistemological improvement.

The Christian Neoplatonic worldview can have a levelled ontology, and our connection to reality is driven by our ethical development which is a powerful proposition. In this final essay, we will look at a modern path to Transcendence that can exist within a naturalistic framework based on Veraveke’s work and offer a solution to Rene Magritte’s Son of Man problem with a different perspective on the old idea of humans being made in the ‘image of God’. Then finally, we will spend some time reflecting on how a modern path to Transcendence through cultivating wisdom and meaning can shift education, culture and institutions of the future of human development.

A Modern Path to Transcendence.

In the last essay, we looked at how meta-cognition affords us Transcendence through the internalisation of other’s perspectives on our own perspective. We discussed spiritual exercises like internalising the sage in Stoicism, which uses a person of admiration as an internal model of optimal behaviour and hence affords us self-correction and transformation. Similarly, Peterson argues that hero myths are abstracted stories from the lives of admirable people like sages or heroes. We tell stories about people who lived exceptional lives and then over time, these stories are blended together to create a generalisable pattern of action that sums up a successful human life. In this way, myths also offer us portals to Transcendence by providing examples of virtue and vice which we can model ourselves on, though in a narrative and dramatic form.

We internalise the perspectives of others on our own to change our habits and patterns of seeing and these new behavioural and attentional patterns become character over time and transform the internal constraints regulating our growth and development - this is the essence of self-correction. As previously mentioned, this self-correction is not merely a psychological improvement but increases one’s ability to connect with real patterns in the world and hence has epistemological consequences. This is important because the need for a virtue tradition isn’t just ethical in some abstract sense of right and wrong but is essential for developing our ‘intellectual vision’ to see the world as we ought to see it, and has to be done through individual transformation.

The platonist levelled ontology, which is multi-levelled, involves not just deconstructing reality into its constituent parts in a reductionist manner but also observing the a priori constraints which are at play in regulating our growth and development and hence the agency we have to influence these constraints. Philosophically speaking, the ancients covered this one and didn’t fall prey to the one-sided reductionist bias of modern philosophy. The significance for the individual is that ethical transformation leads us to the truth, not just the scientific method, self-realisation connects one to reality. This philosophy, interpretation of life, justifies our connection to reality and that we can qualitatively improve our connection to reality through building wisdom and virtue tracked by meaning.

In Vervaeke’s argument for strong Transcendence, the answer to the meaning of crisis is contact with what is most real. St Augustine makes a similar argument when he says each of us has a ‘god-shaped hole’ in our hearts; the hole being ‘god-shaped’ constrains what will fill that hole and Vervaeke argues that this is a connection to what is most real. Within a Neoplatonist ontology, patterns of mind and reality overlap and therefore, the more real patterns you perceive, the more real you become, you self-realise, so, therefore, there are ontological levels which you can climb in life. The reintegration of the spiritual into the modern scientific worldview can allow us to start to afford individuals genuine Transcendence and hence the ability to transform themselves, which is deeply meaningful, and promotes agency and autonomy, which is sorely missing in the increasing complexity of the modern world.

The Image of God.

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence.”

Immanuel Kant

Earlier in the series, I used Rene Magritte’s painting of The Son of Man as an example of the modern meaning crisis-stricken individual who is trapped within their categorical structure and incapable of genuine Transcendence (you read that here if you have not). Well, I consider this poorly photo-shopped image to be a solution to that problem.

Instead of the apple in front of the face blocking vision like in the Son of Man, we have a set of interlocking (what-are-mean’t to be) wedding rings - a commitment. Soren Kierkegaard describes the ethical life as a marriage of past, present and future. Similarly, Nietzsche made ‘promise-making’ the quintessential human moral activity of the ‘Sovereign Individual’ in The Genealogy of Morals. This is because a promise is to make a certain state of affairs in the future a reality and so requires genuine agency - control over the passage of time, which we often assume we have but probably do not.

The ethical individual is bound, committed - but committed to what? To a particular high-order principle?

For Nietzsche, this is freedom, but for ancient philosophers, and Christians, what is also represented by the interlocking rings as The Good: the union of logos and ontos. As Vervaeke describes, the Good is: the continually held promise of the wedding of intelligibility and reality, which we can experience as true. To describe in another language we have established already is like the commitment of Socrates and the Philosophers to ‘turning one’s soul to the Good’. An ontological and ethical commitment to the pursuit of truth, humility, and gratitude and that by some miracle is possible for human beings are connected to reality. It is a journey motivated by love to experience the loving recognition of the true, the good and the beautiful, which used to be called ‘Reason’ in philosophy.

The stars in the background are meant to communicate that the journey toward the Good is brought on by awe, wonder and admiration and in being so struck, we are called to imitate what we admire most. Motivation is no longer just a dreary bureaucratic day at the beachside but an awe-inspiring vision of the Good. It is in the heights that we look up to when we aspire, when we imagine, when we dream, that pulls us up into expanded existence - as Plato said, ‘philosophy begins in wonder’ which means ‘the love of wisdom’ begins with that wonder; love is the motivational force for the pursuit of wisdom.

Joseph Ratzinger writes that in the Catholic view, “truth” is the middle term that reconciles the authority of God and the subjectivity of conscience: the latter, when authentically free, cannot but reveal the truth established by the former (Ratzinger 1991). Unlike Nietszche, who’s ‘sovereign individual’ creates their own values, in the Catholic view, reason alone can’t create its own values, which are instilled by God into humans’ hearts, “human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in the acceptance of that law of God” (John Paul II 1993: par. 35). So when practical reason is free to exercise its “participation” (John Paul II 1993: sec. 40) in the divine law, then “in the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience” (Paul VI 1965: par. 16). This is a very important point, which many philosophers like St Augustine focused on as well, that through an ‘inward turn’, by getting to the bottom of one’s own being, you reached the ground of being itself, i.e God. In observing that objective within the subjective one witnessed first-hand the origin of value and that this was what was most real. In this way, we can see through the rift between the ‘starry sky above’ and ‘the moral within’ which is so present in Kant’s philosophy, despite his idealism overcompensating, and in the Cartesian splitting of object and subject is illusory. It is the presence of the beautiful, the good and the true, that point to the true nature of reality itself.

The final part of the image is the suit, which we discussed with Magritte represents a typical conservative 1950’s grey-man who wears a uniform to disappear from the world. However, this suit in the image is taken from Rene Magritte’s painting ‘The Pilgrim’ and is an attempt to dramatise the narrow market-economy identity of a mature adult into that of an awe-struck pilgrim to the Good. For Magritte, the suit represents enculturation but rather than enculturation into a mundane, stale, social-economic identity that lacks Transcendence and connection to the real. The alternative is the identity of the pilgrim-hero.

The identity of the pilgrim is integral to this new way of thinking. Jonathan Pageau explains a pilgrimage is a physical enactment of going to a holy place as a symbol for the spiritual journey of getting closer to God. The notion of life as a pilgrimage decentralises religion, as is already happening in our rapidly de-institutionalising world, and provides a meta-identity that can scaffold the individual hero’s journeys that we take part in. The pilgrim identity highlights the throughline to an individual life that can join together the often disparate and irreconcilable moments that have no continuous narrative order - which is the norm for a modern meaning crisis individual.

This is because in the west we have lost the throughline to our lives which is God. I encountered this problem very recently in my own life while trying to compose an autobiographical account of the first thirty years of my life. Where do you start? Generally, you’ll generally start with memories, but soon that becomes muddled, because why these memories and not others? And if you put them in chronological order, they will bore the pants off you and make no sense? It’s just a meaningless jumble of events that happened to you? What connects these incidents in life together into a meaningful whole?

One quickly realises that to write an account of your life, you need a throughline to organise the whole of the disparate events - and the question is: what is the proper throughline? Is my life all about being Irish? Is it about being a man? Is it about technology and the modern world? Or drinking? I boiled over this for quite some time. But what was apparent was that whatever I chose the story to be about, would be the highest organising principle for my life and hence the lens through which I saw myself and so held tremendous power. And really what is the highest good? What is the most significant value? And the traditional answer is God, absolute value, and so it became apparent to me that there was a need for an organising principle, a throughline, to create narrative order across time, to make one’s life coherent, and that only the highest value could fill that spot, and thus I was beginning my non-consensual journey to becoming a Christian. If you ever sit down and try and create a narrative order for your life, you will realise that you need a throughline and not any throughline will do, and perhaps then you will be in the same situation I was - needing the God, which you have rejected and insulted for so long.

I would suggest, rather boldly, that this poorly-photo-shopped photo is meant to be a symbol of the ‘image of god’, the image which human beings are made in and which gives us transcendent value. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson describes the hero as the ‘Son of God;

“Behind every particular (that is historical) adventurer, explorer, creator, revolutionary and peacemaker lurks the image of the “son of god,” who sets his impeccable character against tyranny and the unknown”. This image is a symbolic representation of the pattern of action that categorises the hero, the abstracted and generalised pattern of successful adaption. So there’s a peculiar tripartite nature to this image, in that it’s our origin, who we really are and what makes us uniquely human, our destiny, a destination in reunion with that image in which we are made which is a kind of self-actualisation, and hence that suggests the journey between - and so the whole thing is more like a story, a meta-narrative, which is like the self itself - not a static individual identity, but more like a metaphor for life.

Approaching A Modern Meta-Narrative.

“Thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.”

James Joyce.

In the beginning of this series, we started talking about attention and that:

“Morality begins in paying attention to what you don't want to pay attention to but should attend too”.

Perhaps we have gone the long way round to return to such a simple truth, but this is necessary because that is the point of the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is a series of deaths and rebirths, transformative learning experiences, which let go of vices, illusions, dreams and moral imperfections ‘to see as one ought to see’. The Platonic philosophers and alchemists really understood that we must not look but close our eyes and replace the faculty of vision for another, what is called the beatific vision. The ultimate goal of the quest is a better form of vision; the point of death and rebirth of transformation, updating one’s attentional value hierarchy is that it allows us to see what was once hidden right before our eyes.

As Plotinus writes - No eye that has not become like the sun will see the sun, nor will anyone who is not beautiful see the beautiful. In keeping with Aristotle’s conformity theory of knowledge, we know by becoming. So we must become like the sun to see the sun, become like the beautiful to see the beautiful. The three transcendentals: the true, the good and the beautiful, point to God’s nature, the nature of ultimate reality; God is the throughline - not present in particular but organising everything we see. As the Upanishads say, ‘God is not an object of sight but that by which we see’. Like what we discussed with Plotinus and the sculpture, the sculpture has a vision of beauty and good and truth and then works to make the marble and the vision one. The same is true here of the work of self-development and self-realisation, we attain the vision and work to become like the one, and the suggestion is that because we are made in the image of the one. It is not only our natural conclusion but an ethical call to adventure which we must partake in.

That is why this journey must be begun by faith. What is begun by faith, ends in vision, and so a good-faith commitment is needed first to get on the road. Faith takes us on the road, but the destination, understanding and vision, are what give meaning and value to the journey. Understanding is intellectual vision - seeing God clearly with the mind’s eye is the goal and meaning of faith. Spiritual life is about training the intellectual vision to see what it cannot see yet. The word ‘contemplation’ comes from a temple, which actually comes from the Latin word for a part of the sky that you look up to to see the signs from the gods; to contemplate is to look up towards the divine. Beauty calls us forward on a transcendent journey to encounter the Good, and the product of this adventure is truth which is a better form of vision, a better self.

In summary, the image of God as our fundamental identity is shockingly egalitarian for the time, and suggests not just our origin but also our destination, a destiny, a journey in between, an awe-struck pilgrimage to the Good. The pilgrimage is everywhere now; we are all spiritual pilgrims looking for our spiritual home. I have represented the image of God (crudely) in the above image, because I think it sums up the philosophy of self-development or, probably more accurately, self-realisation, which I have been exploring, which isn’t just a static belief system but, in fact, a dynamic and meaningful spiritual way of life. A journey that is begun with faith, a faith that leads to a better vision, and a better vision is a better self.

In Conclusion.

This series was, in many ways, doomed to difficulty from the start. I quickly realised that each arena I skipped through was a book or an entire field of study! So I hope to make up what is missing in accuracy with generalising well. We are in a time that requires integrating science and spirituality, mind and body, and being able to to start seeing the union beyond the irreconcilable opposites. In my own way, I’ve tried to shed some light on that emerging worldview that puts meaning and wisdom rightfully at the centre of human concerns.

There are many levels to the death of God and the meaning crisis, and thus, there are just as many levels to the rebirth. What seems foolish and half-baked today hopefully heralds a better future. But if this worldview is correct, there will be no saving grace; we damned, forsaken, fallen, and our atonement requires sacrifice, moral courage, wisdom, heroism, a rediscovery of those lost values which sound so sentimental to the cynical and nihilistic modern world. There’s nothing easy about any of this. There will need to be a revolution in arts and culture, education and the academy, the internet and our own hearts, new institutions and reinventions of old ones focused on wisdom and meaning. The advent of Artificial intelligence and persuasive technology have brought a definitive end to human unconsciousness, and we must know ourselves in order to survive.

There has never been a more serious bottleneck than in the next hundred years, and our individual thoughts and actions will be magnified to unprecedented importance - that’s the good and bad news. So the work of the arts, humanities, and philosophy is to ‘turn our souls to the Good’ and to help us see as we ought to see. This is a treacherous journey we must embark on, but Peterson argues the great hero’s journey of our lives is ethical and that taking responsibility for that journey is the source of meaning, and somehow, that all starts with your attention, with what we value—so having said that, what should you be paying attention to that you are not?

(PS Taking the usual break over August so will be back with more podcasts and essays in September).

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An interview with Dublin South FM’s Alison Maccarvil on her show Dramatic Dublin review of my debut stage-play WAITING FOR THE OFFO, preformed in THE NEW THEATRE 2023.

Directed by Conan McIvor.

Starring Cillian Lenaghan, Liam Bixby, Hazel Clifford and Terry O'Neill.

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Igor Grossmann is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he leads the Wisdom and Culture Lab. As a cognitive/social scientist, Grossmann has been working on demystifying what makes up a “wise” judgment in the context of revolving societal and cultural changes. His chief work aims to uncover misconceptions about wisdom and societal change and to identify cultural and psychological processes that enable people to think and act wisely.

In this podcast, we are discussing 1) What is wisdom? 2) How can we cultivate it? 3) Can wisdom help us address the challenges we face in the 21st century, such as AI and exponential technology?

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mahonmccann.com

Read the full essay: https://www.mahonmccann.com/

In the last essay, we explored Peterson’s solution to the Meaning Crisis and how cultivating wisdom and virtue can help to orient our meaning instinct properly. We finished the last essay with the latest research on the science of wisdom and the two core conceptions of meta-cognition and moral grounding, which we will explore in this essay on how to cultivate each of these skills.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mahonmccann.com

Read the full essay: https://www.mahonmccann.com/

In the last essay, we looked at Rene Magritte’s ‘The Son of Man’ painting as an image of the fallen, meaning crisis individual. You might notice a similarity between the painting and the cover of my last book, ‘The Man with a Mirror Face’, which presents an intermediate character of the conscience that reflects our character like a mirror, which we will discuss. In this essay, we will look at Peterson’s solution to The Fall, looking at a fundamental weakness in his argument and strengthening it with Vervaeke’s framework and, finally, bringing to the fore the attitude that this existential philosophy represents with the cultivation of meta-cognition and moral grounding.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mahonmccann.com

The Criminal Justice Incitement to Violence or Hatred and hate offences Bill 2022 is currently making its way through the Dail and Seanad and is somewhat in my wheelhouse. This bill is designed to update Ireland’s 1989 Incitement to Hatred laws mainly because Social Media has outdated them. There is an increasing call for regulation on Social Media, and this is what my literature is focused on, and providing tailored recommendations for future policies like this one.

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Part 9 of the Philosophical Guide To Self-Development series. We are now on the downward slope of this essay series. The last three essays will bring together what we have discussed so far and operationalise this worldview within the context of the problems for a modern individual. This essay is going to be mainly problem-formulation, focusing on Postmodernism, The Meaning Crisis, and The Fall of Man (humankind) in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve.

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A fiery conversation with Metamodern writer Brendan Graham Dempsey on Post-modernism, Meaning, Meta-modernity and God.

Find more of Brendan's work here: https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/

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https://youtu.be/s9YQWcG1-o8

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Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist, prominent at the turn of the last century and the creator of depth psychology. Jung is an early proponent of the hero meta-mythology, a discoverer of the collective unconscious and a psychologist who spent his life cataloguing the universal symbols of the mind through dreams and active imagination. Jung attempted to respond explicitly to the meaning crisis and the dissolution of the Western mind, which he witnessed first-hand in Germany during WW2. Jung also argued that the origins of current individual troubles started with the death of God and the loss of the Christian worldview, which had reigned for over a thousand years. However, Jung thought God would reappear again in the psyche because God had disappeared from the external world in secular society.

In this essay, we will operationalising and situating the worldview we have been expounding throughout the series in a modern context through Jungian individuation, drawing some connections with Neoplatonic ideas, and finally, using a dramatic example, we will look at Jordan Peterson’s myth of Pinocchio and how this mythologises the process of self-development and can reveal for us lots we can learn about ourselves.

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Jung’s Theory of the Psyche.

Freud was Jung’s mentor, and Freud had a hydraulic and essentially mechanistic theory of the psyche, being a materialist doctor initially. Freud was a towering figure who made one of the most tremendous psychological discoveries of the turn of the century was the unconscious mind and the recognition that much of what we do happens outside our conscious mind. As Freud wrote, “We are not masters in our own house”. Over his materialism and sexual theory dogmatism, Jung split with Freud. For Jung, the psyche is a self-regulating system like the body, which is why Veraveke calls Jung ‘The Plato of the Psyche’. Jung looked at the psyche as a pantheon of living and warring psychic organs called archetypes that strove to maintain homeostasis and aimed at development through the process of individuation. This is why Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

For Jung, the sum total of the conscious and unconscious mind, which was also the sum total of our full potential, was the self. The self was what drove us towards their process of individuation, to psychological wholeness. The self has three levels: the ego - the centre of our consciousness, sense of identity, organising thoughts and feelings, and linking the inner and outer worlds. The unconscious had two levels in Jung’s theory; a personal unconscious that contained the total of our knowledge, which was not currently being accessed, everything outside of direct attention yet to be remembered and thus is the house of all potential future development. The third part of the self is the collective unconscious, populated by universal symbols, which are the stock characters of the human mind. These stock characters of the mind are called Archetypes, which comes from the original Greek ‘arche typos’ meaning ‘pattern’ or ‘the original pattern from which all copies are made’. (In a previous essay, we discussed Plato’s forms, structural functional organisations, and the forms and archetypes are essentially the same thing.)

To understand Archetypes are images of inborn patterns of behaviour, like how a bird builds a nest by instinct. The bird doesn’t have to go to the nest-building school. For Jung, this is the ‘biological mind’ populated by universal symbols, which we see reflected in myths and stories. He came to this understanding empirically by examining thousands of his patients’ dreams and cataloguing the overlap of universal symbols. He would have secular patients with religious, Egyptian, Greek, and Christian symbols in dreams and couldn’t figure out why? Some argue he was also influenced by James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, which deals with the unconscious and the so-called ‘mono-myth’, which Joesph Campbell wrote “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” about; coincidently, the book Campbell wrote before “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” was the Skeleton key on Finnegan’s Wake. Jung argues this mono-myth is essentially the structure of the unconscious, and dreams were super crucial to understanding the unconscious because they gave us an unvarnished look at what was going on in the psyche:

“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse.” [Collected Works Volume 10, paragraph 317]

Plato also looked at dreams as communication between Gods and human beings and as a way of gleaning important insights for guidance and wisdom. So essentially, Jung believed dreams could show us things we didn’t know yet but needed to know; important self-knowledge hidden from consciousness could be reintegrated by recording and analysing dreams. Self-knowledge for Jung was knowledge of the unconscious; therefore, dreams, active imagination and free association were essential ways of getting in touch with yourself outside of consciousness.

In the previous essay, number 3, we described the hero meta-mythology as a generalised narrative description of the individual process of successful creative adaptation, which was motivationally or affectively optimal. Jung thought that the problem for modern individuals was that we lacked a modern myth to live within. Myths are dramatic maps for knowing how to live well and how we act, but as modern people, we can no longer believe myths. So we need to live within a myth but no longer recognise them as valid? Jung saw this as causing all sorts of existential problems for the modern individual, exposing us to chaos and creating neuroses. Jung said: “Everybody acts out a myth, but very few people know what their myth is. And you should know what your myth is because it might be a tragedy and maybe you don’t want it to be.” The way the individual comes to know the myth they are in and to change the story, so to speak, is through the journey of individuation.

The Journey of Individuation.

Jung appropriated the natural philosophy of alchemy to plug this void in the modern world. Alchemy, on the surface, appeared to be a proto-science attempt to transmute base metals (lead) into gold. The alchemists would do this by creating a philosopher’s stone, a stone or precious gem that could turn base metal into gold and allow the owner to live forever. Jung looked at alchemy not literally but as a profound metaphor for personal transformation and that the Philosopher’s Stone was essentially the philosophy that could bring about that transformation.

Pierre Grimes, a prominent Platonist in the late ’70s, argued that Jung was philosophically a Platonist. He makes this argument because Jung’s philosophy of self-formation or self-development (the process of individuation) is rooted in the Hermetic philosophy, also known as alchemy. Hermetic philosophy is attributed to the semi-mythological Hermes Trismegistus, considered until the Renaissance to be a contemporary of Moses but originated in the 2nd or 3rd century - the time of Middle Platonism. Why is this significant? Grimes connects individuation to the Platonic anagogy, which we have also plausibly equated with the hero meta-mythology, giving us convergence from three separate but inter-penetrating traditions, significantly increasing the plausibility of the argument that we are touching on a perennial philosophy of self-development.

In alchemy, the prima materia was lead, which Jung took to be the un-formed individual, the symbol of which was the Ouroboros, recognisable as a dragon eating its own tail forming a circle, symbolising chaos or pure potential. Here we can connect with the Neoplatonic journey again, which also puts pure potential (matter) at the bottom of the hierarchy of being and pure actuality at the top. This is no different from alchemy, with the top spot, the philosophical gold, being an analogy for psychological wholeness, which is the same aim as the ‘oneness’ of Neoplatonism or becoming ‘One’. So I think it’s fair to look at the journey of alchemy, individuation and Neoplatonism as aiming at the same thing, the integration and coordination of disparate parts of the psyche into a unity. So, how does individuation work?

The Shadow.

There is no straightforward method for Jung’s journey of individuation, but typically the ‘apprentice-piece’ is the confrontation with the shadow. The shadow represents the rejected aspects of the psyche and hence holds’s transformative potential. This involves integrating aspects of yourself that are often taboo or rejected in society, like sex and aggression, or maybe even these days, order and discipline.

For Jung, individuation is how one self-develops out of an undifferentiated unconsciousness by integrating the unconscious parts of the psyche into consciousness, separating pure potential and using inner experience to build one’s consciousness. This was all based on Jung’s principle called enantiodromia, which he describes as ‘the most marvellous psychological law’ and defined as the ‘emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time’. This roughly means that an opposite unconscious reaction eventually compensates if we live in an unconscious and one-sided manner. It’s a dialogical process between unconscious and conscious minds, like the Platonic anagoge.

For example, a chronic nice guy who completely rejects anger and aggression will often become resentful and possibly sadistic and cruel as a result. Their rejection of anger, which is the archetypical God of war Ares, results in possession by this archetype. Another way of thinking about it is that instincts have much more control over us when we are unconscious of them. Obviously, self-control, by definition, is conscious; we have to consciously inhibit unconscious drives. So when the chronic nice guy rejects aggression. However, this inhibits his development because anger and aggression integrated become independence, assertiveness, tenacity, industry, etc. A weakness of Jungian analysis is that it is often profoundly introverted and occurs within the mind; however, this is entirely possible to practise this externally. One way for the nice guy to overcome this dilemma would be to practise being assertive and saying ‘no’ to people, and taking care of his own needs and everybody else’s. Plato also articulated this in Phaedo “everything arises in this way, opposites from their opposites.” (sect. 71a). A chronic nice guy who breaks down from one-sidedness and then begin to integrate their aggression positively into discipline, tenancy, motivation etc., is a more actualised individual in Jungian terms and hence as ‘levelled up

Peterson uses the myth of the knights of the Roundtable to articulate the confrontation with the shadow. When the knights set off for the holy grail, a symbol of psychological wholeness, each begins their search where the’ forest looks darkest to them’, in other words, where they are most afraid to go. The idea is that the place you least want to go holds the most potential development because it is where you have not been. As it is said in Alchemy, “In sterquilinus Invenitur’ - “In filth it will be found”. This is a fundamental reorientation in life, from your comfort zone to the difficult but rewarding ‘zone of proximal development’ in Vygotski’s language or to the edge of your competence. You could argue this is the start of each of our personal hero’s journeys, entering the forest wherever is darkest to us. Unfortunately, unlike the Knights of the Roundtable, we must make this choice every day, even when we feel like shirking off and running away.

In the ‘War of Art’, Stephen Pressfield describes the obstacle to one’s development as ‘resistance’, a voice in your mind that tries to discourage you from taking the challenges that will help you grow. David Goggins calls this voice the governor, like a car governor that controls the speed limit. The psychologist Stutz, in The Tools, describes this inner-obstacle voice as Part X. Whatever you want to call it - there is something in you that doesn’t want you to be your best, and it’s something you have to overcome to fulfil your potential. The confrontation with the shadow is necessary first because this is the proverbial leaving the Cave, the village’s safety, and entering the dark woods of the unknown. It’s tough but leads to the gold of a more integrated personality. The confrontation with the shadow can be summed up as “face what you reject, accept what you refuse to acknowledge, and you will find the treasure the dragon guards”.

The Anima & Animus.

Jung argued that confrontation with the shadow and the ensuing consciousness enlargement brought one into contact with the contra-sexual element of the psyche. For women, this is a man (the Animus); for men, this is a woman (the Anima). This is a confrontation with the inner other, and similarly to the shadow example, if we do not pay homage to this inner other, then we will become ‘possessed’. If the shadow is the ‘apprentice piece,’ then the Anima and Animus are the ‘masterpiece.’

For a man in Jung’s philosophy, the Anima demands success, his greatest, or she will torture him and drive him to illusion. Jung looked at the male Anima as progressing through four stages: first, is eve is indistinguishable from the personal mother. The second was a personification in Helen of Troy, the ideal sexual image. The third was Mary, which manifests in religious feelings and a capacity for lasting relationships, and the fourth stage is Sophia, Wisdom; a man’s Anima functions as a guide to the inner life, mediating to consciousness the contents of the unconscious - this is a functional relationship between the unconscious and consciousness. The stages of development for the female Animus are comparable (read more here) but ultimately culminate in Hermes, which is worth mentioning, to make this less abstract.

Wisdom, or Sophia, is personified in Greek Philosophy by the Goddess Athena, who was often put together with Hermes in ancient sculptures to make a Hermathena. They both frequently assist crusading heroes and are the gods of good judgement, quick wit and cunning. The Hermathenastatue was featured in Cicero’s classroom, and he thought it an appropriate emblem of ‘learning’. Jung thought that what we don’t know is projected onto the unknown in the world. For Jung, the Anima and Animus stage for Jung is about overcoming projection, essentially, illusion.

Really what this is about are attention and salience. We discussed this in the first essay unconscious forces pull our attention in ways we can’t understand. Hermes is the winged messenger of the Gods; he mediates between the unconscious and the conscious mind. Interestingly, Herme’s mother mythologically was ‘Maya’, the Goddess of illusion. The Greeks knew this problem with attention, and their panoply of God’s was the sum total of unconscious forces that can act our attention. By sacrificing to God’s and negotiating with them, we gained the ability to direct our attention. The Gods try to orient you in a particular direction by making things more vivid and salient, attracting your attention; they illuminate and darken your path as they guide you. If you are possessed by the wrong unconscious forces, they may take you somewhere you don’t want to go. Integrating these unconscious forces into a functional unit manifests as an interesting pathway to follow. If this instinct is good, it will guide you to self-realisation. For Jung, the aim with the Anima is for her to become ‘depotentiated’ so we are no longer possessed by our unconscious states, which is the flip side of becoming autonomous.

Pinocchio & Spiritual Transformation

We can make sense of Jung’s individuation journey using the Pinocchio myth. In his Maps of Meaning lectures, Peterson frequently used the story of Pinocchio as a metaphor for the journey of personal transformation and growth. For Peterson, we all start out like Pinocchio, created by someone else, purposeless, and puppeted by unconscious forces. Pinocchio is a puppet but has the potential to be a ‘real boy’ (if you remember, Aristotle uses wood as his key example of potential). So the story of Pinocchio tracks this journey to become ‘real’. How does it dramatically enact the path of self-realisation?

The source of the potential realness is a wish by Gepetto on a star that he would become a ‘real boy’. Gepetto is the culture and tradition that created him. The Blue fairy, a positive element of the unknown, informs Pinocchio that to become a ‘real boy’, he must prove himself brave, truthful and unselfish - virtuous. In Plato, becoming virtuous is the path to the Good, which is most real! Becoming virtuous is becoming like reality, which is to be real.

Pinocchio gets off to a bad start and falls in with a rough crowd. He goes through several temptations to remain sick and weak, become a false celebrity (an actor), and reside on a pleasure island, where the boy’s he goes with literally become ‘asses’, braying donkeys who are slaves to the devil. Luckily, Pinocchio has his own conscience with him, ’a bug’ called Jimmi Crickett, who bugs him to do the right thing but knows only a little more than he does, where he shouldn’t be mostly, like Socrates Daimon.

Pinocchio escapes pleasure island by jumping into the sea and chaos, failing to gain autonomy, and trying to return home. This return home is a failure to launch. He tries to return home and act like he can return - but it’s not the same. God is dead, and his father is no longer at home.

A golden dove comes along and drops a note in front of him: that his father is not dead but is stuck in a whale’s belly. Jiminy Cricket convinces him to go and look for his father, who, it turns out, has been swallowed by a fire-breathing whale named Monstro (of course). This sequence apes the biblical story of Jonah and the big fish, when Jonah tries to avoid God’s call to preach to his enemy city Ninevah (Isreal’s enemy) and tries to escape on a boat but gets thrown overboard and eaten by a big fish instead. Peterson describes this mythological “Belly of the Beast” as facing the dark night of the soul to activate your potential. It is the mythological motif of “rescuing your father from the underworld”, the father, who is God, culture, and tradition, is stuck in the unconscious. So in the motif, the hero must go down and rescue him, but he has to go to the deepest part of the ocean where the most terrible thing rests - the darkest part of the forest, pretty much.

How can we make sense of this in a more naturalistic way?

In After Virtue, Mcintrye argues that our traditions provide our moral standpoint on the world. As we have already discussed, to be a cognitive agent is to have an implicit frame of value; reality is combinatorial explosive, so we have to prioritise to perceive and act. So we’re already seeing the world through a frame of value - The father is essentially the frame of value; this is the unconscious, implicit frame of value handed down by culture and tradition. Peterson argues culture is composed of dead fathers and references the story of Osiris, who is dismembered in the underworld but then revivified by his son Horus. Horus literally gives his eye (his attention) to Osiris, the dead tradition. The normativity of this story is that heroic behaviour involves sacrificing other objects of attention to revivify the dead tradition. The rescuing of the father in the underworld is a mythological motif of entering your unconscious and bringing to consciousness your implicit value system, equivalent to the Socratic ‘know thyself’ (know the principles guiding your action). Peterson explains that we must grapple with our potential in relation to the expectation of the traditional ideal. This can be a bitter pill because the ideal reflects badly upon us and highlights our weakness of character, so it’s a profound self-correction, a transformation, a death of sorts. However, when Pinocchio dies after rescuing his father, he doesn’t stay dead but is resurrected by the Blue Fairy as a real boy.

It is ironic that the answer to Nietzsche’s argument ‘that God is dead’ comes from this weird story about a puppet rescuing his father from the belly of the whale. The journey to rescue his father, facing the whale in the depths, and returning with his father, proved his character and thus what allows the blue fairy to turn him into a ‘real boy’. What this implies is that to become an autonomous individual, we must face the darkest part of the forest and come to rescue our implicit value system, update it, and hence grapple with the cultural and traditional ideals submerged in our unconscious; this is what it means to develop a self.

What would happen if Pinocchio didn’t rescue his father from the underworld?

There is a biblical story, “The Curse of Ham,” which articulates the opposite of the rescuing of the father story. Ham was a son of Noah, and his son Canaan was cursed to be a slave for his whole life because he saw Noah in a moment of vulnerability, drunk and fallen asleep naked at the bottom of the stairs, and he judged him negatively. This might seem a harsh punishment, cursed for all eternity for judging a naked guy badly at the bottom of the stairs? What Canaan’s brothers did was they didn’t look at their father, and they covered him up out of respect. So how I read this is that the father represents God, culture and tradition and is the implicit value frame guiding our actions, which is flawed in many ways and outdated, but without which we are confronted with the world’s chaos. This is easy to do with tradition, we didn’t make our implicit frame of value, and we probably don’t understand it, so the values can easily seem antiquated or downright silly. So we are constantly at risk of hubris against traditional wisdom. This judgement of the weakness of the father makes you into a slave, but why?

Well, for the same reason that rescuing his father made Pinocchio, not a slave, no longer a puppet of unconscious forces. Our executive functioning, the ability to inhibit desires (which is self-control), has been bootstrapped by culture. If you think about the Nietszchian idea, without God, everything is permissible; suppose you reject tradition and refuse to rescue your father from the underworld to know thyself; you reject the part of yourself that comes from the culture and the tradition. Hence you lose the cultural cognitive technology that can regulate your behaviour and as a result, you become a slave to your desires; you stay puppetted by unconscious forces. This is hardly surprising, considering language and wisdom come from your tradition. So if we reject the tradition, we will struggle to discern virtue from vice and attain autonomy.

So, in summary, rejecting tradition and God leaves you vulnerable to the whims of powerful trans-personal evolved unconscious forces that will puppet you like fate, and therefore to take command of one’s fate, one’s future, involves this rescue of the implicit value system trapped in the unconscious, and is akin to the Socratic ‘Know Thyself’ philosophically. Plato often argued that philosophy was preparation for death, and we can see in this hero’s journey how the voluntary, sacrificial death of Pinocchio, the puppet to rescue his father, allowed him to live as a ‘real boy’, sacrificing the old self so the new self can live.

Conclusion.

In this essay, we’ve taken a brief run through Jung’s philosophy and shown how it connects to Neoplatonic philosophy, and through the shadow, the Anima and the dramatic map of Pinocchio, indicated some way shrines or road-markers on the journey of self-development that can help to orient you on your way. In the next episode, we will look at the failures of modern philosophy, the French Existentialists, Nietzsche and the philosophical mistakes that lead us into the Meaning Crisis as obstacles to self-development and how we can leverage attention and cognition to go beyond them.

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Eric Orwoll is a Christian Platonist philosopher and the creator of the Understanding Platonism and Aarvoll youtube channels (check out his channel here)

In this podcast, we are discussing Christian Platonist solutions to the Meaning Crisis.

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Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro 0:36 - Crisis of Meaning 5:22 - Re-entering Christianity 15:20 - Platonic Tools 25:19 - Levels of the self 27:04 - Grace 31:00 - Self-integration 35:50 - Centrality of attention 39:13 - Jungian Shadow 40:45 - Jung & Plato 44:03 - Order & Chaos 49:52 - Hierarchy of good & evil 54:13 - God as Being 56:55 - The First Principle 57:56 - Aristotle & Plato 1:00:06 - Nominalism 1:02:09 - Socrates

Have you gotten your ticket for my debut stageplay, “Waiting For The Offo”, this July in Dublin?

Saturday night is already sold out, so make sure to buy early so you don’t miss out 👇

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC10oqMKjGhP8KuRpLuBMSVw

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Read the full essay here: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

In this essay, I will show how Plotinus’ philosophical system (Neoplatonism) provides the normative order for a meaningful worldview, based on John Vervaeke’s argument in Awakening From The Meaning Crisis. Firstly, we will introduce Plotinus and his ideas. Then we will show how he utilises Aristotelian science, Stoic Spiritual exercises, and finally, introduce several important enacted symbols to describe this spiritual journey to the One.

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Gregg Henriques is an American psychologist. He is a combined-Integrated Doctoral Program professor at James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, US.

He has just released a new book “A New Synthesis: Solving the problem of psychology” (get the book here) where he is addressing the mind/body problem, what the mind is and provides a complete epistemology to bring together a divided discipline.

Join Gregg’s upcoming conference here

Or Follow Gregg at https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/

Watch the full conversation 👇

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv51U5T8-aCUchK0oyYggrA

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We are continuing our exploration of a philosophical guide to self-development with the therapeutics of the stoics. This essay is part of our project to examine the components of neo-platonism as a theory of human development and draw parallels with the hero meta-mythology and Jungian psychology. Tim Ferris, the author of the 4-hour work week, described Stoicism as: "An ideal operating system for thriving in high-stress environments."

Read the full essay at: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

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D. C. Schindler is professor of metaphysics and anthropology at the John Paul II Institute, Washington, DC. He is the author of eleven books, including Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty (University of Notre Dame Press, 2017) (get his books here).

In this podcast, we are discussing his book ‘Plato’s Critique of impure reason’, reading dramatic literature as philosophy, connecting Platonism and Christianity, finding good in western civilisation again, how St Patrick changed ancient Celtic laws, and much more!

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Latest essay in the philosophy of Self-Development series, looking at Vervaeke's work on Aristotle's theory of Growth & Development, Virtue Ethics & Living up to potential, and the Hero-Meta Mythology, Rationality and becoming wise.

Check out the full article here:

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Delighted to have Dublin Videographer, photographer, and all-round legend, Hannah McGlynn back for the second time to discuss quitting drinking.

In this podcast, we are talking about insights and inspirations for staying off the drink, reflecting on the year I just did sober (and Hannah’s last 6!), confronting bad drinking habits, changing consciousness, flow states, creativity, casual alcoholism, and much more!

Check out the video:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv51U5T8-aCUchK0oyYggrA

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro

1:59 - Hannah’s Story

9:52 - Invisible Chaos Machine

12:50 - Sober Socialising

15:29 - Flow States

18:00 - Creativity & Addiction

19:08 - ADHD & Dopamine

27:09 - Personality Psychology

30:00 - Finding your Niche

33:00 - Shame & Shadow Self

39:06 - Stutz

40:53 - Judgement

42:49 - Binge Drinking

45:50 - Potential & Alcohol

49:07 - Media & Drinking

51:44 - Setting Realistic Goals

58:12 - Finding Balance

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Part 4 of the series, exploring the life of Socrates, Plato's philosophy, escaping the Cave and mapping out personal transformations.

To read the full essay visit: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

To listen to the Awakening From The Meaning Crisis Episodes mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhl51bZQlM8&ab_channel=JohnVervaeke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neDutbcedUY&ab_channel=JohnVervaeke

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https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke

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Sebastian Watzl is the associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, author of 'Structuring Mind: The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness' and one of the foremost philosophical thinkers on attention in the world today.

Get his book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Structuring-Mind-Nature-Attention-Consciousness/dp/0199658420

In this podcast, we are talking about attention, how attention works, why attention is the start of self-control, how to improve your attentional skills, what attention capture technology is doing to our brains and how to fix it!

Watch the full conversation here: https://youtu.be/jpiGoqs1jss

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Part 3 of the current series discusses the Meaning Crisis, Jordan Peterson's Hero Meta-mythology and Relevance Realisation.

Read the full article here: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

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Thoughts on the Meaning Crisis, Virtue Ethics & Cultivating Character.

Read The full article here: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

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Brett Anderson is an Evolutionary psychology PhD researcher and author of the 'Intimations of a New World View' Substack (you can subscribe below)

In this podcast, we are talking about Brett’s work answering the meaning crisis with Jordan Peterson’s Meta-mythology, a new grounding of value in science, providing a naturalistic argument for God, Zombie Christianity and more!

Watch the full podcast on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/FL-bOP2tGyI

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The attentional crisis has created the need for changing our practices to cultivate our abilities to control our attention and guide our own development, to prevent it from being stolen and added to corporations' bottom lines. That’s what I’m going to look at in this essay, what is attention? How does it function? How can we control our own better?

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John Vervaeke is a professor of cognitive science and cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, who has published a 50-part lecture series on Youtube, called "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis." (Check out John's Youtube channel here). He has been interviewed on the Jordan Peterson, Lex Fridman, and Modern Wisdom Podcasts and is a world-leading pioneer in Cognitive Science.

In this conversation, we are discussing the attention economy, social media, the meaning crisis, Silicon Sages, and a vision beyond the meaning crisis.

Watch the full video podcast on Youtube: https://youtu.be/oVC3bU5NhYU

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Jeffrey Dahmer, prolific American Serial Killer and Cannibal, has the number one TV show on Netflix this week? (And I thought Zak Efron playing Ted Bundy was bad) Dahmer’s racked up the most views for Netflix since the debut of Stranger Things Season 4 with 196.2m hours of watch time since its release on September 21st. What is our weird obsession with evil mass-murdering serial killers? And culturally, why can’t we stop making creeky-cassette-playing documentaries about every lunatic with aviator sunglasses and 10+ murders under his belt?

Read the full article at: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

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Massimo has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He currently is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York.

He is the author or editor of 14 books, most recently 'The Quest For Character: What Socrates can teach us about the art of living well' (Get your copy of the book here).

In this podcast, we are talking about Stoic philosophy, improving our character, cultivating wisdom, the story of Socrates and the wreckless Alcibiades, Ancient Spiritual exercises, Tribalism and more!

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“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

In CBT, a Cognitive Distortion is a fancy term for bad thinking. Or if you want to be really cynical about it, lying. We are constantly confronted with more information than we can handle in the world so we take mental shortcuts to get to grips with the complexity but often these mental shortcuts, have negative consequences for us, further down the line.

CBT is based on the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. The founder of CBT, Aaron T Beck, explicitly references the Stoics in his work, and the work of the Stoics can be summed up by the previous quote; thinking shapes our perception and by taking control of our thinking you can become a wiser and more virtuous person.

A cognitive distortion is a type of unproductive thinking that occurs when someone does something like Mind Reading. Mind Reading is essentially reflexively inferring what other people are thinking/feeling with little or no information to do so. We all know the story: Somebody is slightly off with you so you think: this must be XYZ, they think this, that and that and that's what going on! And without ever honestly asking them what is going on, you've made up a story, a theory, an explanation, and then probably get upset about it.

The story that you are applying to the event is so fused to the event itself that you end up confused, to become un-confused, then you need longer see the meaning you are attributing to the situation as a product of your own mind and separate it from reality. This can be a painful process however if you habitually do it, life can get a little less confusing.

These stories can also act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, you feel someone is off with you and you start to infer into this change in behaviour and tell a story, that you said something or did something that they didn't like when in reality, it’s something completely different. Now when you are interacting with them, you are thinking about what you could have done wrong! Rather than paying attention to them, and so they perceive that you are distracted and infer some other negative story into your behaviour and hey presto, drama occurs. And the entire circumstance was created by the story of the events that you were telling yourself.

CBT and Stoicism are about taking a philosophical pause and reflecting on our impulsive and uncontrolled judgements, on what we are telling ourselves in our mind, and pushing back and questioning those assumptions to get closer to the truth - In other words, paying attention to the meaning we ascribe to the event and doing the moral work, to unwind that meaning toward a more realistic judgement.

How To Stop Mind Reading.

First, identify what exactly it is you predict the other person is thinking. Sometimes just writing down or saying the prediction out loud can help you see the holes in logic, and get you a little distance from the unhelpful thought.

What are the costs and benefits of believing this thought? Although we usually don’t think about thoughts in terms of their costs and benefits, they all have costs and benefits. With mind reading, you may think that you are protecting yourself from some bad outcome, or some kind of a surprise. These would be benefits. Costs are things like increased anxiety, more self-consciousness, and ruminating. Now compare the potential benefits to the actual costs, and ask yourself, “Would you want to buy these thoughts given their price?”

What is the evidence for and against your thoughts? When we engage in a lot of mindreading, we usually only consider evidence that confirms our predictions. Rarely do we ever pit our assumptions against evidence that steers us away from our predictions. By collecting the evidence for and against our mind reading, you can determine which side has more evidence, and more importantly, consider the quality of the evidence you have. This is a more objective approach to testing your thoughts and can help you detect common cognitive distortions.

Can you test out the thought? What would need to happen for you to be absolutely convinced? Try it out as an experiment. Trying something new, and might get you a result you didn’t expect.

The True Aim of Stoicism and CBT.

“I know only one thing: that I know nothing.”

-Socrates.

There are 3 Maxims attributed to the Oracle of Delphi: ‘Know Thyself’, ‘Nothing in excess’ and ‘Certainty is insanity’.

The Oracle of Delphi was a pillar of wisdom in the ancient Greek world, who proclaimed Socrates was the wisest of all men and prompted his somewhat shocked statement above. However once Socrates heard this prophecy, he tried to prove the Oracle wrong and went to investigate other wise men. He quickly realised the other Wisemen know nothing either and that being aware he knew nothing was actually a strength! Because none of the other wise men knew anything either but they believed they knew things and hence suffered the evil of ‘double-ignorance’. In Socratic Ethics, all evil is the result of ignorance. People don’t willingly do evil, they simply mistake one good for the most important good and then b**t themselves. The answer to the problem of self-deception, to lying to ourselves, is Socratic self-knowledge.

The goal of Stoicism is to become like Socrates, the ideal sage. In becoming like Socrates, the Stoic develops epistemic Humility and the ability to hold thoughts and judgements lightly. This doesn’t mean to become some sort of pushover! Socrates died for his convictions and could never be described as somebody like that, but he was deeply in love with pursuing the truth and re-discovering the truth, and wasn’t afraid to ask tough questions, which eventually lead to his death, which he faced very bravely.

To become like Socrates is a practice of paying attention to one’s thinking and judgements and correcting bad mental habits, like Mind-reading. Knowing the limits of your mind and inferences and separating the meaning from the event, appearance from reality and hence pursuing truth.

Stoicism and philosophy in general challenges us to catch ourselves in the act of falsifying reality and to make a moral effort to stop doing it out of love for the truth. You might be interested to know, that the term philosopher comes from the Greek ‘Philo-Sophia’ and means lover of wisdom, and that love is actually the primary motivational force for the philosopher. Addressing these questions honestly, is the start of an adventure, and all that might start, with simply asking better questions of yourself in your mind.

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Adam Lane Smith worked for years as a licensed psychotherapist and now focuses on his speciality as an Attachment Specialist. Through his new role, Adam helps people build a new foundation for their life. (Check out Adam's work here, or sign up for his attachment boot camp to love yourself and connect with others if you like here).

In this podcast, we discuss working through attachment issues, red flags, how to have a healthy relationship, honesty, trust and the culture wars.

Full video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFzN5sNIz5o&ab_channel=MahonMcCann

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Want to discover & learn more about philosophy & self-improvement?

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Audio essay on Jordan Peterson and quitting the drinking for something better in life. To read the full article visit: https://mahonmccann.substack.com/

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Rob Walshe is The Irish Dog Father, one of Ireland's premiere dog walkers and dog trainers and in my opinion, Dog thinkers!

In this podcast, we are talking about the strange origins of Shitzu's, what human beings have done to dogs, dog psychology, tips and insights for dog owners and what our canine friends can teach us about love and ourselves.

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The Choice of Hercules.

As a young man blinded by rage, Heracles killed his over-critical music tutor with a single blow. After this incident, understandably, he took himself off into the forest to think about his life and reflect on what he was going to do next?

To his surprise, two ladies met him in the forest; both were dazzlingly beautiful and taller than ordinary women. The first stood before him in sensuous colours and glittering jewelry, while the other was clad in simple white. The first was called Kakia or (vice), although her friends knew her as "happiness." She said: "Choose me Hercules, and your life shall be a ceaseless pleasure, and no effort of mind or body will be demanded of you." Then the other spoke up, Aretê or Virtue, and she said: "Choose me Hercules, and you will have the honour of your countrymen, but I cannot promise a life without labour, for no man may reap where he does not sow…"

Heracles deliberated on the choice, and the benefits which the two Goddesses offered. Finally, he chose the path of Virtue — both the bitter and the sweet. Because of this choice, he faced 12 trials, madness, entering the underworld, and the death of his family but afterwards was deified by Zeus and became a God - the highest honour a mortal can receive.

Mental Health in Crisis.

Epictetus made the point in one of his lectures that Hercules could never have been Hercules if he stayed in bed all day. Hercules was Hercules because he faced such great adversity. Adversity was what made him great, and yet we all avoid and complain about our own hardship?

The Choice of Hercules is ancient and deep story, first recorded by Xenophon in his Memoropilia and comes from at least 400 BC in Ancient Greece, and God knows where before that. The story warns of the temptation of an easy life of pleasure and reward without any effort and the moral difficulty in choosing a life of honourable pain and effort that may or may not lead to achievement. We all know this when our parents as kids poke and prod us to do the right thing and not take the easy way out. But often this kind of simple truth has often become laughable in the modern world.

But what is not laughable is that we have a severe mental health crisis at the moment amongst young people, and the data is very clear on that fact. So the question is, why? Why, in a time when people are more entertained, well-fed, and safer than ever, less under threat, and outside the food chain, are we more distressed than ever? The answer to this question lies in the choice of Hercules and Modern Neuroscience.

The Answer From Neuroscience.

"Wickedness can be had in abundance easily: smooth is the road and very nigh she dwells. But in front of Virtue the gods immortal have put sweat: long and steep is the path to her and rough at first; but when you reach the top, then at length the road is easy, hard though it was." - Hesiod, Works and Days.

They didn't have neuroscience back in 400 BC, so they had to make do with the insights of literature and Philosophy. Now, in the 21st century, we have empirical research into the brain's functioning that can help us elucidate the central importance of the choice of Hercules and the philosophy within for mental health.

One of the most exciting discoveries of modern neuroscience is that pleasure and pain are located in the same part of the brain and behave like a balance; tipping the brain to the side of pleasure causes a mirror symmetric tip to the side of pain because the brain wants to maintain balance, homeostasis. (This is a crude description, and if you want to see Dr. Anna Lembke explain what she calls 'The Pleasure/pain balance', then watch this video here.) The basic idea is summed up in the old expression: what goes up must come down, and the further we go up, the further we go down.

And the more we go up, what's called 'Dopamine stacking', the further we go down. Dopamine stacking is when you experience 'Dopamine Free-fall'; think of a come-down after a big win. Instead of accepting the decline, we start pounding beers or doom scrolling Instagram to create an artificial high. This can become a shocking feedback loop that many of us exist in today.

Dopamine and Mental Health.

"High levels of Dopamine achieved without effort will destroy a person" -Andrew Huberman, American Neuroscientist.

Dopamine is the molecule of drive, motivation, and pursuit and is described as the 'molecule of more'; it makes us want more of what makes us feel good. Often times people think, Dopamine is about reward, but Dopamine is about pursuit and craving of reward (The reward itself is more of an opioid in nature). Dopamine supply is finite but also renewable. This means you can 'use up’ your supply of Dopamine but, if you wait, it will return to baseline levels.

When we experience unnaturally high levels of Dopamine from exogenous pleasures, drugs, alcohol, and highly-rewarding technology like social media or video games, we create a phasic burst of Dopamine, a sudden increase in the supply, and thus when the high wears off we fall below the baseline level. When we stop using an exogenous supply of Dopamine, we experience 'Dopamine free-fall' which is essential discomfort, disphoria and irritation.

The temptation then is to engage in what is called ‘Dopamine Stacking’, which is when you experience ‘Dopmaine Free-fall’ and then immediately add another highly rewarding behaviour on top to prevent the Dopamine drop. Think when you are doom scrolling Instagram so you change to Youtube for something more rewarding. If we continue to do this for a long time, our brains downgrade our own supply of Dopamine because we have what is called an ‘exogenous supply’, and then when we stop using our drug of choice we will experience the universal symptoms of withdrawal: anxiety, depression, irritability, and insomnia, or in other words, the classic symptoms of mental illness.

Dopamine is essential for mental health. Mental health can be defined as the ability to set and pursue goals (most people enter therapy because they feel 'stuck', either they don’t have goals or they can’t achieve the goals which they are pursuing). Without Dopamine, pursuing goals is impossible. If hungry enough, rats with a healthy amount of Dopamine will pursue food in their cage even over an electric shock pad. However, a Dopamine deprived rat won't even get up to eat if a food bowl is placed beside it, and will eventually starve to death within arm's length of a decent meal.

The mechanics of Dopamine show how an easy life of pleasure with no effort can lead to more pain, discomfort, and ultimately mental health problems. Pleasure is psycho-physiologically costly, and thus the industries of pleasure in the modern world, fast food, rewarding technologies, endless luxuries, are making us sick and depressed.

What Can We do about it?

It's convenient to say that this is a modern problem caused by the market. However as the story of Hercules's choice points out, this is a perennial human problem - a choice between the lower and higher angels of our nature? I don't see any way a human being can be mentally healthy in the 21st century without some awareness of this problem and the functioning of their physiology.

Understanding the mechanism of Dopamine and the pleasure/pain balance leads one to conclude that you should spend your Dopamine points wisely and not pursue rewards that lead to no outcome, in religious language, actions that bear no fruit. We are all in danger of living a life of pointless distraction and making oneself feel good without producing anything to really feel good about. Making the decision to pursue the path of Virtue, effort and reward, rather than reward without effort, is deeply challenging. In my opinion, this is the moral fight of our generation: taking on the responsibility of self-regulating to avoid self-destruction.

The problem is that reward is now de-coupled from effort, and we can get endless pleasure for free. Naturally, as mammals, we seek pleasure and avoid pain, but part of maturing and becoming successful as a human being is being able to endure pain to get real rewards, to achieve, from the French Achever, meaning "gain as a result of effort." No effort, no achievement.

The choice of Hercules is more relevant than ever and is essential to well-being, to function well as a human being, which is what well-being really means. We have to make this decision voluntarily, each of us, and now the environment is being engineered by other humans to keep us from making the harder choice. To keep us living the easy life.

We need a culture and leaders who encourage us to overcome cheap pleasures to face honourable pains, to grow and develop ourselves as people. We all face the choice of Hercules everyday when we experience that Dopamine free-fall and face the choice to go on and become more in-debted to pleasure, to keep the cycle going, or to say ‘no’ and accept the suffering implicit in life. A tough decision to make, one which I struggle with myself daily, but it is a more important decision than you think - so, which path will you choose?

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This will be the last post as I usually take the month of August off to refresh myself, gather new ideas, and guests and generally sort my s**t out. So you will hear from me again on September 1st!

Warm Regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Sup Monks!

(very special podcast today)

Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist and best-selling Stoic author. He has written seven books on philosophy and psychotherapy, including the best-selling' Stoicism and The Art of Happiness’ and 'How To Think Like A Roman Emperor', and the recent 'Verissiumus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.'

(Get your copy of Verissimus here)

In this podcast, we talk about Donald's new book, the choice of Hercules, virtues vs vices, Social Anxiety, Worrying, Anger, Social Media and how philosophy teaches you to talk to yourself better.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting Donald’s books and I consider them an antidote to many of the modern ailments we are experiencing at the moment, see more of his books at: https://donaldrobertson.name/

If you like this podcast and others, please consider sharing Monk with a friend and spreading the good word:

Full Audio Podcast:

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Any questions or reflections? Feel free to email me back! I always love to hear from you.

Warm Regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Resistance: The Enemy of Mankind.

"The more important a call to action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel about answering it. But to yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be."

Stephen Pressfield

Last week, I spoke about our inner daimon, an inner spiritual guide that can help us grow and develop in life. However, this wasn’t completely honest, as I left out the shadow side to that ability. An inner enemy that wants to stop us from growing and developing and wants to keep us weak and afraid, called: Resistance.

A lot of people have messaged me previously asking about motivation and procrastination and how they can actually sit down to do their creative work? This is the topic of a book called 'The War of Art’ by reformed procrastinating writer, Stephen Pressfield. In this book, he coined the term Resistance. An inner antagonist we all must face to sit down and do something significant.

Resistance manifests as an inner voice that rationalises, it tells you you aren't good enough, It tells you the work isn’t good enough, it tells you why bother? Resistance tries to divert you from your destiny; Pressfield says Resistance is a con-man whose only goal is to stop you from doing the work and realising your potential. Resistance is the source of procrastination and resistance is nothing other than fear, the fear that prevents you from living a full life.

An example of how Resistance maims a person in this way is the life of Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted to be a painter and architect. He applied to art school, but the Resistance standing between him and his goal was too great. He struggled with criticism and was scared to put his dreams on the line. In the end, it was easier for Hitler to start a world war and oppress an entire population than go through the pains of committing to his art. Facing Resistance is no joke.

As a writer, I face procrastination all the time. I’ve planned entire careers and lives to avoid facing resistance. Pressfield points out people live entire lives designed to avoid facing Resistance, start pointless jobs, and relationships, have endless dramas and seek mindless pleasure-seeking to avoid the task. We are all in danger of living fake and chaotic, disorganised lives to avoid facing Resistance.

The true path, Pressfield says, involves using Resistance like a compass - resistance points North in the direction of maximal growth and development. Makes sense? Where you least want to go is where you will find what you need. This is the old mythological idea of the dragon's cave and the dragon's gold - under the biggest problems lies the biggest reward. So, in other words, Resistance, where you are procrastinating, is where your heroic life really is. But then, the real question arises, how do you go after it?

Becoming a Warrior.

"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."

― Steven Pressfield

For Pressfield, defeating Resistance and procrastination involves a permanent change in attitude. The problem is we are, what Pressfield terms, ‘amateurs' - easily intimidated and scared off the field and fail to fearful rationalizations and the promises and diversions of Resistance. Resistance is a liar and means to divert us from our destiny, and Pressfield says we have to turn 'Pro' to face it. That means the same way you peel yourself off the couch to go to work to put food on the table, is the same you have to approach your creative work. Seth Godin, best-selling author and marketing genius, used to say ‘writer's block can only happen if you're thinking like a writer - plumbers don't get plumbers' block.’ You just have to get the job done.

Pressfield points out that life is a sport you have to play hurt. Everybody is all hung up on healing these days and finding the perfect moment where you feel completely perfect to start the work, when really really you have to accept that it will never be perfect and just get going. Overcoming Resistance is about bringing your God-given gift into this world and giving birth to that sucker. Instead of letting Resistance push you away, let it call you forward.

Pressfield compares this ideal attitude facing resistance to the Navy Seals. If you put the Navy Seals in cold water, they'll rub sand in their eyes to make it worse. If you starve them; they dehydrate themselves too. In other words, if it gets tougher, they want it to be even tougher again! This is because they know that the more challenging the conditions, the more they will grow. They cultivate a mindset that enjoys the pain, the suffering, and misery because it is a creating an immovable spirit, a point of pride and honor in the strength of their character.

In my life, the same has been true in martial arts, the bigger the challenge, the more fear, the more progress. Mostly in life, pain, fear, and discomfort means we should stop and need to go the other direction. But this is a logic of a prey animal, an amateur, to become a Pro and beat Resistance, you need to be able to head into the eye of the storm.

What you learn in martial arts is that making a habit of facing fear and practising courage is the best way to live. It never gets easier but resistance is never tougher than when you quit for awhile. Practise helps you identify what are excuses and rationalisations and ignore them and cultivate an attitude of getting the job done, no matter what.

When an interviewer asked Elon Musk if he ever thought getting to Mars was too big a job? Elon said he didn't think of it that way. In his mind, human beings had to get to Mars at some point, and failure wasn't an option - the job simply had to be done, and so he was doing it. This has to be your attitude facing Resistance; there simply isn't a plan B, you have to be all in.

Develop a Growth Mindset.

"Are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it."

― Steven Pressfield.

This attitude of facing Resistance, and becoming a creative warrior, long developed in martial arts and the military, has recently been confirmed by Neuroscience.

In her groundbreaking research, psychologist Carol Dweck at Stanford University was investigating why people fail. In one experiment, students were given a series of puzzles, ranging from easy to difficult. To her surprise, some kids liked failure and treated it as a learning experience. One ten-year-old boy even yelled out - "I love a challenge." This attitude epitomizes what Carol went on to coin as a growth mindset. A growth mindset thrives on challenge and sees failure as a springboard for stretching existing abilities. As opposed to a fixed mindset that sees failure as final. The difference between a fixed and growth mindset, in my opinion, is believing or disbelieving resistance - and this is something you can control.

A growth mindset sounds like a hokey, modern personal development concept. However, what it really represents is an enlivening attitude toward challenges that can make overcoming resistance and procrastination a joy.

The secret to developing this mindset is by changing your attitude to challenge. That challenging things are good. This makes the challenge more salient you and motivational because motivation is mediated by Dopamine. When you desire the challenge and difficulty, you attach a dopamine reward to doing hard tasks and create a positive feedback loop - rewarding yourself for taking on the hard task, which in turn helps you take on more hard tasks in general. You can do this by setting clear milestones, it might be writing a page, sitting down for an hour or two hours - whatever the goal, the point is I’m making a habit of sitting down and facing that resistance and rewarding myself for doing so. Habitually facing challenges takes the sting out of resistance and cultivates positive feedback loops.

People often say the phrase 'enjoy the process'. In my opinion, this is what they are referring to, discovered by ancient philosophers, artists, and warriors, and now, modern neuroscience - the attitude is to see facing resistance and challenge as the goal. This is a fundamental shift in how you live your life, away from easy pleasure-seeking, and giving into fear and rationalisations and excuses, toward the hard and honourable combat with the forces of Resistance, which is the work of Gods and heroes. The best way to overcome procrastination is to make facing Resistance a way of life, and to remind yourself that when you see resistance it’s your job to go and face it - get it tattooed on your skin if you have to - we don't let the Resistance win.

If you want to explore this topic more in-depth, I highly recommend getting Pressfield's, as it explains these truths more eloquently than I ever can, here

Thank you for reading Monk. This post is public so feel free to share it.

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None

What is a brand?

This is one of those ghoulish, new-age internet questions that keeps me up at night. I don’t really understand brands and branding, but thankfully Joe Barnes is an accomplished Brand Strategist, graphic designer, painter and visual storyteller - so he can set me straight!

In this podcast, we are discussing branding, personal versus professional branding, the mechanics of branding, how creativity works, is controversy a good thing? And more.

Listen on Spotify:

Watch the full interview:

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro

01:00 - What is a brand?

06:00 - The mechanics of branding

10:00 - Problems in the marketplace

12:00 - How creativity works

14:00 - Branding in art

18:00 - improving your brand

24:00 - Branding & Identity

29:00 - What is Creativity?

33:00 - What is a good brand?

35:00 - Controversy & Branding

42:00 - Personal Development & Branding

46:00 - Jordan Peterson's Brand

52:00 - Being an online creative

(If you like the podcast/essays, please consider sharing Monk with a friend :)

Warm regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

“You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.”

— Socrates, Plato’s Apology

Socrates and His Daimonion.

15th February 399 BC - The Athenians put Socrates on trial for trumped-up charges of corrupting the youth and worshipping false gods and he is found guilty and sentenced to death. Part of the reason for the charge was Socrates Daimonion, a voice which spoke to him and told him what not to do. The word Daimonion is notoriously tricky to translate, but Cicero refers to it as divinum aliquid — a ‘divine something.’ For later thinkers, like Plutarch, the Daimonion became a Daimon, a personal spirit, which Plutarch related to Conscience.

Socrates’ friends urged him to run away when he was put on trial, one even went so far as to bribe the guards, but when Socrates consulted his Daimon on the issue, the voice said ‘no.’ Socrates faced a moral dilemma: Listen to the Daimon and die? Or ignore the Daimon and live? Socrates concluded that the Daimon had only ever told him good things in his life so therefore, death must not be a bad thing. He drank the poison and died, and the rest is history (literally).

The Voice of Conscience.

For the past three weeks, I’ve discussed personal development on the podcast and the thought occurred that our behaviour is controlled and regulated consciously by the voices in our mind, what Sigmund Freud would call the Super-ego. Of course, we ask other people and confer, but when we make decisions and think something over, this process occurs in the mind as a conversation. The question is, a conversation with who?

Conscience As The Voice of Character.

“Ethos Anthropos Daimon” (Character is fate or character is to a man, his Daimon) - Heraclitus

My problems with my Conscience started with issues with authority as a teenager. Until my late teens and early twenties, I had no real relationship with my Conscience. I didn’t do some things because I felt it was a bad thing to do, but rather in a calculating sort of way, because my parents or teachers would be mad at me, and that would suck.

An actual quote from my writing aged 20, ‘authority is the true enemy of all mankind.’ My parents, teachers, the Gards, the government, and anybody in a position of authority, in my opinion, were illegitimate. As Millennials, in general, we have issues with authority because, of course, once bitten, twice shy. We have seen institutions crumbling around us and felt the anger and cynicism of children who have been let down.

My anti-authoritarian philosophy allowed me to reject my own inner authority (Conscience) and to behaviour in any impulsive-pleasure-seeking way that I wanted. This is because when you reject authority outside, you also reject authority inside. My Anti-authoritarian fun was short-lived and I ended up stuck following the group, with no discipline, goals, boundaries of my own, only tons of negative emotion, confusion, existential crisis, inner chaos, impulsive-pleasure seeking, bad poetry, bad relationships, and overall, hell.

The Conscience is an authority, and getting back in touch with the Conscience means again justifying that some authority is good and necessary. If you condemn authority outside you, you condemn authority within, and it is the authority within is what guides you through life. The conscience is responsible for personal development, or not.

So, How do we improve our Conscience?

My central thesis is that individuals should be responsible for their personal development, not me or anybody else. As Cicero said,

‘No one can give you wiser advice than yourself.’

But the problem is, like when I was younger, we aren’t that wise! My counsel to myself wasn’t good, or at least I didn’t listen if it was. So I found myself on a path of destruction, immoral and often downright dangerous. So how do you strengthen the advice that you give to yourself?

That seems obvious, education? The job of teaching is to grow and make your own inner guiding voice more sophisticated and to put our childish, ignorant selves in conversation with the greatest minds and lives of human history? Except generally that doesn’t happen in the education system these days and so we are left bereft of that composite character, that inner voice, that can guide our development. The Stoics had a way of dealing with this problem: the contemplation of the ideal sage.

The exercise was to imagine someone you admire (for the Stoics, this would often be Socrates) and to internalise their character, what you admire about them, what makes them good, how they act, how they think, how they judge and to ask yourself at times of moral decisions, what would they do?

In other words, you emulate their example. But as you grow older, you build on their example with other people’s examples and discern a good example from a bad example and you define what it means to be a good person. Through negotiating with that inner authority, you develop an inner teacher, a mentor like Yoda in Star Wars. But one that has been strengthened with the ideas and thoughts of tradition and thousands of human lives. This is how you guide yourself well through life.

Conclusion.

There is so much more that could be said about this topic. But Socrates looked at the Daimon as the spark of the divine within and the voice of the Gods, and as a guide, he could rely on - that’s a superpower as far as I’m concerned.

But the Conscience is not perfect and must be developed to develop your development!

Rationalisations, excuses, willful ignorance and lies pathologise your conscience and damage your judgement, making you lost and without guidance.

Education should deepen and enrich your conscience and help you internalise figures you admire to bootstrap your conscience.

If you develop your conscience you can trust your own judgement, tell right from wrong, and guide yourself through life effectively.

Listening to your Conscience requires courage because it often brings you into conflict with other people. It takes wisdom to discern good advice from bad advice and learn right from wrong - Luke Skywalker eventually has to leave Yoda behind, so at times it is necessary to go beyond your conscience in order to re-vitalise it. There’s no straightforward path here.

You have to be temperate to not destroy the voice with impulsive pleasures, and just to balance the demands of the conscience with your own needs and safety. But according to everything I’ve learned thus far, this is the place where personal development begins. This all starts with that relationship with your inner voice, with your inner god, and is something which is under your control.

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Sup Monks!

Here it is, the final episode of the 3 part trilogy with psychologist and founder, Mitja Černko on ‘What is Personal Development?’

In this episode, we try to synthesise what we have discussed in the first two episodes; delving into the virtue of Sophrosyne, the ideal sage and Mitja’s model of personal development, Attuned Sovereignty, before bringing it all together into a new definition and hopefully, greater understanding.

Listen now on Spotify:

Watch the Full video on Youtube:

Warm Regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Sup Monks!

Part 2 of this very exciting chat with Psychologist and Co-founder of the Trainer's Forum, Mitja Chernko is out now!

In this podcast we are talking about, the essence of personal development, Relevance Realisation, Attention, Big Five Personality Theory, evolutionary traps, Well-being and the developmental crisis of the future.

Audio podcast:

Video podcast:

Timestamps:

0.00 - Intro

03.20 - Re-cap

09:00 - Relevance Realisation

16:00 - Agent/Arena Relationship

17:11 - Why does essence matter?

26:00 - Transformation of personality

30:00 - Personality versus Personal

34:00 - Capacities

40:00 - Evolution

45:00 - Well-being

55:00 - Psychological Literacy

Part 3 will be out in two weeks!

If you like the content please share and encourage other people to sign up and get involved:

Warm Regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Storytime.

In Greek Mythology, in the later stories of Theseus, son of Posideon, slayer of the Minotaur, founder of Athens, he is having an identity crisis of sorts. In many of his later stories, Theseus, a once-great hero, mainly misbehaves with his mate King Pirithous. Pirthous (meaning to run around), was born when Zeus turned into a horse and bucked his Ma, and he was well known for causing trouble.

One day, the mischievous pair decided they would marry the daughters of Zeus because they were both such hot stuff. Theseus chose Helen, who if you know the story of Troy, was the most beautiful woman in the world and a real heartbreaker (except at the time of this story she was only 12 and they kidnapped her. Pretty messed up). King Pirithous chose Persephone, Goddess of Fertility, even though she was already married to Hades, king of the underworld - yipes. Not the best call.

This whole thing was a bone-brained scheme, like your mate tempting you out on the batter looking for women when you know you should be at home in bed. But Theseus thinking he was a good mate, said, 'no bother lad, I'll go to the underworld with you and we get her back,' which turned out to be a terrible move. They left Helen with Theseus Ma and went out on their mission.

Somewhere on the journey, around the outskirts of Tartarus, Theseus got tired. He was older and not as youthful as he was before on his adventures. So he decided to sit down on a rock to rest, but when he did, he felt his limbs change and grow stiff. He tried to get off the rock but could not. He was fixed to the rock now! As he turned to cry out to his friend, he saw that Pirithous, too, was crying out. Around him gathered the terrible band of Furies with snakes in their hair, torches, and long whips in their hands. Faced with these monsters, the hero's courage failed, and they led him away to eternal punishment.

For many months in half-darkness, Theseus sat stuck to the rock in the underworld, fixed, mourning for his lost friend and himself. By pure chance, he was rescued by Heracles, who came to the underworld for his 12th task, capturing the three-headed dog Cerberus. Theseus persuaded Persephone to forgive him for the part he had taken in the rash venture of Pirithous. So Theseus was restored to the upper world, but Pirithous never left the kingdom of the dead. When Heracles tried to free Pirithous, the underworld shook. When Theseus returned, Helen was gone and had run off with some other young fella from Sparta. From that time on, he experienced terrible misfortunes, killing his own son, and eventually, some other new upstart hero threw him off a cliff.

Overcoming the quarter-life Crisis.

‘The Quarter Life Crisis’ is a fairly Millennial concept but not something uncommon for young people to wrestle with, the question of, who am I going to be? I’ve struggled with this for many years and consider myself to be out the other side now and able to offer some useful insights for you too. Life around the mid-to-late twenties, can get very complicated; some people are getting married with kids, others are out on two-day benders, and then you're just sitting there in the middle, eating cereal for dinner. Uncertain times for a burgeoning adult.

When in the underworld, moving from one meaning-making structure to another, the temptation is to fall back into old habits and regress to the last place you felt comfortable and safe, to proverbially sit down on a rock. When in uncertainty you don't know how to act and you are in danger of falling back into old habits to stabilise yourself or just defaulting to copying everybody else. Except this doesn’t solve the problem of where you are going, to find a habitable adult identity.

So, how do you get out of the quarter-life Crisis? And what lies beyond?

If you want to have clarity about how to act now, you need to decide who you will be in the future. The future self sets the normative constraints for how we act in the present. For example, if you want to be healthy in the future, you have to live healthily now. If you want to be courageous in the future, you have to start practising courage now. If I want to be a philosopher, I have to start talking shite, now...

I found out the truth of the future self through hard experience. Being deeply unhappy with who I was in my early twenties and a mile off my ideal. I faced a choice then - Lie, and pretend everything is fine? Keep going the way I was going? Or get really, real? Face facts, that I didn’t really know who I wanted to be anymore and that I had to spend time atoning, trimming down on vices, making tough decisions, facing uncomfortable truths, and hammering away at those bad habits; the equivalent of moral weight lifting because morally, I was a complete shrimp.

For me, a lot of my problems were tied up in the session. Last Christmas, the bad outweighed the good once more, and I decided to cut quit drinking for a year. There's no way to sugar-coat this tough-pill-to-swallow but drinking holds you back. Doing this sober time and drunk time has shown me that drinking gets in the way of just about everything, relationships, productivity, and self-respect. Drinking is fun but comes at a cost.

The session became a familiar routine, an anchor in the chaos and uncertainty of life, beyond complicated families and academic pressures, there were friends, stories, status, rituals, weekly benders to look forward to, and hangovers to recover from, and then more sessions to get excited about all over again. But that is why quitting drinking, or any familiar routine, is so hard - It's not just not drinking the juice that makes your head explode; you genuinely have to become a different person. As Epictetus said, "It isn't possible to change your behavior and still be the same person you were before."

Sacrifice is the essence of personal development. You can't have your cake and eat it too. We are limited beings, so for something to live, something else must die. As you get older, into your late-twenties, the early thirties, the landscape changes, people get into relationships, commit to careers, move on, values change, and we come face to face with the future and the question for ourselves, who am I going to be?

Getting over the quarter-life Crisis involves sacrificing the behaviours that keep you tied to who you were. For you, the sacrifice might be something different, but the aim is the same. You need to:

Build a vision for who you want to be that you love and find motivating.

Identify and remove the bad habits that keep you from living in-accord with your ideal.

And cultivate the good habits that will get you there; the right path.

It involves sitting down and wrestling with who you want to be, writing, reading, and reflecting. Finding your values and then breaking those abstract values into actionable routines and practices you can implement that will eventually become integrated into new habits.

This seems so simple? Why doesn't everyone just do this?

In reality, it is not, and our culture offers tons of distractions and addictions but little to no real guidance on how to undertake this project. The modern marketplace is a comfortable rock making factory; social media, drugs, alcohol, movies, and endless streams of content, all threatening to keep you 'stuck on the rock' in the underworld. Using pleasure and comforting patterns of behaviour to keep you from cultivating your character. But the difference between being a loser and a winner can be sacrificing a couple of bad habits. There is no alternative to this process, and no one can do it for you.

With the virtue of time, I realised that drinking was holding me back and keeping me comfortable in situations where I shouldn't have been comfortable, keeping me in physical and mental places I should have left, and repeating the same patterns of self-destructive behaviours, I should have left behind long ago. To be the person you want to be, you have to sacrifice the behaviours, the person, who you were. This is a harsh and brutal process, murderous really; you have to become a beast to avoid getting stuck on that rock in the underworld, forever.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Mitja Černko is a psychologist, researcher and co-founder of the Trainer's Forum.

Mitja’s bio:

“My journey as an adult learning provider started when I was 19, beginning with the contrast between "formal" and "non-formal" education. While studying psychology, contributing to various (international) student organisations, and conducting (social) data science projects, I became increasingly impressed by the scope and depth of learning experiences and how reliably they can be facilitated. 10 years later, this insight still powers my involvement with Trainers' Forum (TsF) - an international and interdisciplinary community of learning providers whose collective intelligence continually inspires me with its innovative potential.”

In this podcast, we are discussing:

What is personal development?

Cybernetic Personality Theory

Stoicism

Individual evolution

Evolutionary traps i.e technology

Virtues and vices

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Listen on Spotify:

Watch on Youtube:

If you have any thoughts, feelings, or reflections on the podcast or the topic, please feel free to email me back!

Warm regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

John Sellars is a Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London (where he is an Associate Editor for the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project).

He is the best-selling author of numerous books on Stoicism including 'Lessons in Stoicism' and 'The Fourfold Remedy'.

(Get a copy of John's incredible books here)

In this podcast, we discuss Stoicism's values, history, and tools and how they relate to mental health and well-being for modern people.

Video podcast:

Warm Regards,

Mahon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Debbie Shaw is the Founder of the Numbered Days Collective and the Take 2 Podcast, having in-depth conversations with indie folks to create a new perspective on my podcast.

Find her videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTJ4nfRe00zFhx6fGmDSqw

You will learn how to:

⭐️ Start your own podcast

⭐️ Do social media marketing that doesn't suck

⭐️ How to be a better interviewer

⭐️ Create Connections

⭐️ Make your own podcast video clips

⭐️ Put yourself out there

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Dr Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and a New York Times best-selling author, of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.

(get the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/B09GYNV92D)

In this podcast, you will learn about:

The pain/pleasure balance
The mechanics of addiction
Self-binding strategies for smartphones and social media
How to embrace pain
How to abstain and gain control
Why living in the moment is difficult
Ancient philosophy for modern life

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

None

Brenden Kumarasamy is a communication expert and the CEO and founder of MasterTalk with over 21k subscribers on Youtube.

You will learn:

Why communication is valuable

The best communication mindset

Actionable insights and exercises

How to improve your public speaking

How to master presentation confidence

How to remove filler words and more!

Book a FREE workshop with Brenden now -

https://www.rockstarcommunicator.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Meghan Sullivan & Paul Blaschko are Philosophy Professors at the University of Notre Dame and authors of 'The Good Life Method'.

Get the book here (highly recommend it): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Life-Method-Reasoning-Questions/dp/1984880306/

We all want to live the Good life but face no shortage of obstacles as human beings? This podcast looks at actionable insights, practical knowledge, and strategy that can get us closer to living our good life.

You can expect to learn about the role of ethics in the good life, how to tell morally 'thick' stories, why being anonymous on the internet brings out the worst in us, why the Metaverse might not be the best idea and much more...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning

Anna-Rose Charleton is the founder of Empires End, an ancient history & media enterprise, a presenter on RTE PULSE, a West-End Actress and much more.

In this podcast, you will learn why historians thought the ancient Greeks were colour blind, which empire is coming to an end, Greek mythologies, the power of memes, and why the 21st century might be ancient Greece part two...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Well there ya go, episode number 50! 💸

It has been a wild road with many lessons and learning and I try to get to the beating heart of the whole in this podcast! 🚀

I discuss Joe Rogan, Socrates, why talking is so important, the meaning of love and more. 🥷🏽❤️

Check it out now!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Philip Halton is the founder of Goblin Skateboard Magazine, an entrepreneur, skateboarder and social leader.

This podcast talks about Philip’s fight to keep Portobello Square in Dublin a public space while a new hotel is being built next door.

You will learn about protecting the spaces you love, the attitude of a positive social reformer, and how to successfully change a system and maybe, the world...

Full video interview:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Debbie Shaw is the Founder of the Numbered Days Collective and the Take 2 Podcast, having in-depth conversations with indie folks to create a new perspective on my podcast.

Find her videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTJ4nfRe00zFhx6fGmDSqw

You will learn how to:

⭐️ Start your own podcast

⭐️ Do social media marketing that doesn't suck

⭐️ How to be a better interviewer

⭐️ Create Connections

⭐️ Make your own podcast video clips

Dr Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic and a New York Times best-selling author, of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.

(get the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/B09GYNV92D)

In this podcast, you will learn about:

The pain/pleasure balance
The mechanics of addiction
Self-binding strategies for smartphones and social media
How to embrace pain
How to abstain and gain control
Why living in the moment is difficult
Ancient philosophy for modern life

None

Brenden Kumarasamy is a communication expert and the CEO and founder of MasterTalk with over 21k subscribers on Youtube.

You will learn:

Why communication is valuable

The best communication mindset

Actionable insights and exercises

How to improve your public speaking

How to master presentation confidence

How to remove filler words and more!

Book a FREE workshop with Brenden now -

https://www.rockstarcommunicator.com

Meghan Sullivan & Paul Blaschko are Philosophy Professors at the University of Notre Dame and authors of 'The Good Life Method'.

Get the book here (highly recommend it): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Life-Method-Reasoning-Questions/dp/1984880306/

We all want to live the Good life but face no shortage of obstacles as human beings? This podcast looks at actionable insights, practical knowledge, and strategy that can get us closer to living our good life.

You can expect to learn about the role of ethics in the good life, how to tell morally 'thick' stories, why being anonymous on the internet brings out the worst in us, why the Metaverse might not be the best idea and much more...

The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning

Anna-Rose Charleton is the founder of Empires End, an ancient history & media enterprise, a presenter on RTE PULSE, a West-End Actress and much more.

In this podcast, you will learn why historians thought the ancient Greeks were colour blind, which empire is coming to an end, Greek mythologies, the power of memes, and why the 21st century might be ancient Greece part two...

Well there ya go, episode number 50! 💸

It has been a wild road with many lessons and learning and I try to get to the beating heart of the whole in this podcast! 🚀

I discuss Joe Rogan, Socrates, why talking is so important, the meaning of love and more. 🥷🏽❤️

Philip Halton is the founder of Goblin Skateboard Magazine, an entrepreneur, skateboarder and social leader.

This podcast talks about Philip’s fight to keep Portobello Square in Dublin a public space while a new hotel is being built next door.

You will learn about protecting the spaces you love, the attitude of a positive social reformer, and how to successfully change a system and maybe, the world...

I am honoured to be joined by the @twochapsendurance and @twochapsdeli, talking about giving up the drink for 2022 🗣

@conorcostello has celebrated 3 years sober this week! And myself and Mo are attempting to emulate his wisdom and challenging ourselves to do 2022 without any drinking 🍻

In this podcast, we discuss why we want to give up the drink, drinking histories and strategy for taking on the challenge and finding a new way of life 💯

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Colin Deyoung is a personality psychologist, personality neuroscientist, the creator of Cybernetic Big Five Personality theory and the associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota.

In this podcast, we talk about the big five personality theory, personality change due to social media, the philosophy of well-being, cybernetics, Thomas Szasz and the Myth of Mental Illness, Stoicism, contentiousness and more.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Mannix Flynn is an Irish politician, playwright, artist, orator and documentary maker.

In this podcast, we talk about his recent documentary Land without God, untold stories, the meaning of culture, Irish national identity, the Cobblestones pub, healing, trauma and more.

You can watch Land Without God here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciycZsUDlGc&ab_channel=YouTubeMovies

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Pints of Guinness, Martin Luther King and what greatness really means.

Zak Stein is a developmental psychologist, speaker and the author of 'Education in a Time Between Worlds', exploring the Meta-crisis and the role of education.
In this podcast, we explore the implications of Social Media and exponential technology for education and what changes would have to take place for a truly educational and democratic technology to emerge.

You can purchase Zak's book 'Education in a Time Between Worlds' (which I highly recommend) here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677

And for more of my work see: https://withkoji.com/@Mahon_McCann

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology, and Society

Paddy Gibson is an Irish actor known for his roles in The Tudors, The Passing Bells, and The OA, winning the 'Rising Star Award' at the 2017 IFTAs.

In this podcast, you can expect to learn about how actors overcome fear, what you can learn from evil characters, Paddy's hilarious experience narrating Ulysses, flow states, how his parents helped him as a child actor, the Metaverse, NFTs and much more...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A podcast about the history of social media, the latest literature on the problems and some possible solutions that are happening and that might happen.

Recommended resources:

The Centre For Humane Technology 'Ledger of Harms'
'Igen' Jessica Twenge
'The Coddling of The American Mind' Jonathan Haidt.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A quick twenty-minute philosophical punch up on Squid game and the Stoic philosophy of cultivating character.

In this podcast you will learn about the morality of Squid Game, the Stoic view of character, the dichotomy of control, Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, Money and Ethics and much more.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Mairtín McCann (my Da), is a 5th Dan black belt in Bujinkan Ninjitsu, amongst other arts and an award-winning screenwriter, focusing on Irish culture and history.

In this podcast, we talk about the link between ancient ninjutsu and Irish Celtic warriors, my Da's history in martial arts and visiting Japan, the difference between a warrior and a martial artist, Miyamoto Mushashi and becoming a lifelong learner.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A quick philosophical injection this week with a twenty-minute talk on courage and the dark conflict of masculinity.

You can expect to learn about courage, Aristotle's golden mean, the hidden plot of breaking bad, moral wisdom, and tools for implementing courage in your own life.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

In this Sober October Edition podcast I will be discussing getting off the pints, dopamine and dopamine deficiencies, beer pressure and telling people to f**k off, transcendental experience, and how to wrangle your brain chemicals when they go wandering off. Check it out now!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Paul Kuyer works as a PhD candidate on the ethics of digital nudging at DCU. He is part of the international training network PROTECT and has degrees in economics, business, and philosophy. He focuses ok the ethical problems that arise from the collection of data and investigates what consequences digital nudges have for our autonomy, well-being, and economy.

In this podcast, we talk about digital nudging, the attention economy, big tech companies, artificial intelligence, the apocalypse, the positives and negatives of a digital world, and what good and bad really mean.

Links: https://koji.to/Mahon_McCann

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Intro

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Sam 'Tag' Beckett is a Dublin based painter and artist who has been exhibiting work for ten years, painted for 24 hours straight while his friend played piano and is named after the playwright Samuel Beckett (very cool).

Ahead of Tag's upcoming event in the Dukestreet Gallery on the 23rd of September: Tag Beckett Versus The Scramp, we decided to chat about the show Dads being superheroes, our inevitable deaths, creating art, being a man and starting a cult.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Jacob Kishere is a practitioner of Dialogos dedicated to the transformative potential of conversation, and a podcast host with Sensespace, talking to many leading thinkers in the meaning-fulness movement.

In this podcast, we discuss dialogos, a type of transformative conversation and Jacobs practise guiding people through the experiences, the healing effects of psychedelics, Berlin, the meaning crisis and intergenerational trauma as young Britain and Ireland lads... Check it out now!

You can check out Jacobs practise and 1-1 dialogos at www.jacobkishere.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Sean O'Rouke is a painter and Jui Jitsu Purple Belt from inner-city Dublin. In this podcast we talk about his work, being inspired by the flats growing up, going from sketchy young fella to successful artist, what we both learned in martial arts and what making art is all about.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

An article about what I’ve learned from 40+ hours of intense one on one conversations to help improve your conversation game.

This week I had a chat with @philihalton, Goblin Skateboard magazine, about Ireland!

We talked about Irish history, identity, philosophy, economics, reminisced, and tried to get at the spirit of this tiny island with a big heart, which made me proud of this wee place.

As I mention in the intro, this is the last podcast for a month. I'm taking August off to deal with life admin. I hope you enjoy this podcast, and we shall return in September with more audio goodness.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Illstrips (Jordan Barry-Browne) is a Dublin-based illustrator and comic creator, best known for his rich and detailed characters and hip-hop-inspired sci-fi series Cosmic Slop!

In this podcast, we talk about Jordo's story, the universe of Cosmic Slop, Old school hip-hop, the creative process, perverted comics, and wearing sombreros with no tops on. Check it out now!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

New podcast out now!

In this podcast I attempt to address the meaning crisis through the reintegration of ancient ideas, dipping into cognitive science, depth psychology, religion, alchemy, philosophy, and much more. (Link in bio)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

New episode on Spotify now!

In this episode, I had a charming conversation with @realtionshipcoachingni about love and relationships in the modern world.

We discussed why you would have a long-term relationship? What Tinder and other technologies are doing to the dating market, communication, commitment, desire, and what it means to be in love.

Books discussed: David Deida ‘The Way of The Superior Man’

The honeymoon effect Bruce Lipton

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

‘The View From Above’ is an ancient stoic spiritual exercise, a powerful meditation to give you a cosmic perspective on life's problems. This version is from @donaldrobertson’s book 'The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy' and can be done in 15 minutes, sitting or lying down, for a renewed sense of calm and serenity. I hope you enjoy it! (Link in bio)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

This week I had a cracking conversation with Coach Alan from my Mind-Body training official. It was savage to meet a young lad from Dublin like myself on a new path and see the similarities in our stories and the changes we've gone through to get where we are now.

In this podcast, we talk about United Ireland, Alan’s story, map out the changes from young guy getting in trouble to successful coach and business owner, talk about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, difficulties of online marketing, why Alan got banned from Tik Tok and much more!

You can expect to learn how to transform yourself, get tips for mindset, training, entrepreneurship and online business and have a great time listening to us chat and share what we've learned openly and honestly. This is a good one! (Link in bio).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Combining philosophy, CBT, and a little dramatic writing to help you find your inner philosopher and control your mind. (estimated reading time 4 minutes)

Honoured this week to have @donaldrobertson on the podcast talking about cognitive behavioural therapy and stoicism.

Donald is a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist, author, and trainer. He has written six books on philosophy and psychotherapy, including the best-selling' Stoicism and The Art of Happiness and 'How To Think Like A Roman Emperor'.

In this podcast, I take the opportunity to learn about stoicism, the relationship between ancient philosophy and CBT, what our culture can learn from the ancients, how wisdom works, the stoic values, why Stoicism is a philosophy of love, and why you need a philosophy of life. I hope you enjoy it!

If you haven't already, I highly recommend getting Donald’s books and I consider them an antidote to many of the modern ailments we are experiencing at the moment, see his books at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-Robertson/e/B002Q2WSPA?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2&qid=1623850768&sr=8-2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07D2C5NNV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

For Donald's website and more see: https://donaldrobertson.name/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

A solo QnA answering questions from people on Instagram about who I would be in history if I could? Do I think there will be a united Ireland? How has my 6 months sober been? What do I think of Rites of passages? Progressive-ism? And much more. I hope you enjoy it!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Everything I know about overthinking and how to get some peace of mind. (estimated reading time 9 minutes)

This week I had a very interesting chat with Lonneke van de Weijer, a 26-year-old Dutch Masters's student in clinical psychology at the University of Rotterdam, and beginning her journey of becoming a Jungian analyst.

In this podcast, we talk about dream interpretation, the unconscious, Carl Jung, and the state of Western culture at large.

You can expect to learn about dreams, Jungian analysis, and also the negative trends in our culture which dreams can help overcome, leading to a more meaningful and connected individual and hence society, I hope you enjoy it!

If you are interested in dream interpretation with Lonneke you can see her website at: https://www.lwdreampsychoanalysis.com/services

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Making all the dreams come true this week, chatting to Dr Josh P Twining, a conservation biologist, ecologist, muay Thai coach and fighter!
In this podcast, we talk about what we've learned from martial arts, pursuing the scholarly and the fighting life, Josh's work with giant Indonesian lizards, the primal experience of hunting, veganism, finding truth, master-student relationships, the ups and downs of academia, the dark side of luxury and modern culture and much more. This is a fantastic chat with a genuine intellectual warrior. I hope you enjoy it!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A personal story from Berlin-based Irishman Jordan Buckley on celebrating two years sober.

Seamus Heaney made the point in an interview with Charlie arose that, all art is ‘redemptive' it serves the purpose of making one feel worthy of life, which we all desperately need. I had a chat this week with @ Marcus about his recent single redemption, his story within music, writing method, hopes and aspirations, and much more.

Go subscribe to his YouTube channel, Spotify, follow on Instagram - he's gonna be a big star some day soon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

I had a great chat his week with the head wizard himself @mushroomsatscrimmybingus, about psychedelics and finding your purpose in life. Scrimmy is a burgeoning mycologist, creator and frequent traveller to the psychedelic realm.

In this podcast, we talk about growing mushrooms, psychedelics, ancient rituals, finding your purpose, the stoned ape theory, ayahuasca, growing up, meaningful coincidences, meeting inter-dimensional entities and much more. Check it out now! (Link in bio)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

An article about recent health problems due to burnout and improper resting and what I’ve learned as a result.

This week I've got another chat with Mr @philiphalton discussing stoicism and ancient philosophy for the modern mind.

In this podcast, we discuss the stoic philosophy, Roman history, mental health, culture, controlling emotions, facing adversity, toxic masculinity (and why I don't like that term), religion, and how the lives of these ancient men can shape our future.

You can expect to learn some of the histories of stoicism, the lives and struggles of the characters (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus), techniques for curbing overthinking and quick tempers, using traditional values to find meaning and purpose, and lots of inspirational quotes and thoughts. This conversation is a real fire-cracker, so I hope you enjoy it!

Books referenced:

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Letters from a stoic Seneca

Discourses of Epictetus, Epictetus

How To Think Like Roman Emperor @donaldrobertson

Produced and edited by Brian Lincoln

Intro by Chris Bent

If you want to buy my book ‘The Man with a Mirror Face’ the link is in my bio or throw a few quid into the Buy Us a Coffee page below.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

This week following on from her super popular article 'Quitting drinking at 22' I had an amazing chat with @hannahmcgylnn about the four years off alcohol and drinking culture in Dublin and Ireland. In this podcast, we discuss what Hannah has learned on her journey, the benefits of cutting out the sauce, Irish session culture, making space in your life for creativity, and lots of silly stories from two former session heads. Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

Jimmy McAleavey is a Belfast playwright, author, and sometimes screenwriter who is also a lecturer in creative writing at Queens University and an associate playwright of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

In this podcast, we talk about Jimmy's career, the troubles, plays versus television, empathising with characters, why loyalism might have some hidden virtues, are human beings are really top of the food chain? And are the big questions still the big questions?

In this podcast, you can expect to learn about Jimmy stopping riots in west Belfast with his lilac pants, why truth leads to empathy, the essence of playwrighting, why marvel is just religion with pecs, and maybe, what life is all about. Enjoy!

I nearly ruined this interview, I think, by laughing every 30 seconds, but honestly, there's no man like Jimmy; what a storyteller!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A brave and inspirational Guest post from Dublin-based film-maker and digital artist Hannah Mcgylnn, celebrating her four years of being off alcohol and the journey she underwent to make this momentous and important change in her life. (estimated reading time 5 minutes)

Calling all you electronic music session heads out there! Got a hot one for you today!

Phenomenology music, aka Callum C (real name Calum Cowie), is an electronic music producer in Belfast, striving to create forward-thinking music to invoke deep emotional states. Moving on from his previous dance music career as Callum C, with a couple of serious Beat Port hits, he's reinvented himself to go his own way and make the music he wants to make.

In this podcast, we discuss the electronic music scene in Northern Ireland, the unifying effects of dance music, Irish session culture, changes in the music industry's business model, binge drinking as kids in fields, growing up, and much more. Enjoy!

Links:
https://m.facebook.com/Phenomenologymusic1/?tsid=0.9315751870629132&source=result

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/Q5oxi

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A short story from my book ‘The Man with a Mirror Face’ set in Belfast about the choice between revenge and forgiveness for a grieving father after the murder of his son.

Aron Burke is a Neuroscience graduate, Musician, and cold water immersion enthusiast. This is an explosive and exciting conversation in which we probe the questions - What does addiction do to the brain? Is social media and modern life making us all addicts? Can treatment with psychedelics reverse the damage? How does modern technology take advantage of evolved weaknesses?You can expect to learn about addiction and the brain, treating addiction with psychedelics, metaphors, and your mind, how social media exploits evolved human weaknesses, why we need free will, why Whim Hof is superhuman, what anti-depressants are, and much, much more. This one is a real hitter! Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

A guest article from writer, entrepreneur and skateboarder Philip Halton on the Stoic Idea Memento Mori on his 26th birthday (estimated reading time 10 minutes)

Two chaps endurance (@conorcostelloe + @andrewmowatt) are a Wicklow endurance club and soon-to-be food truck owners with @twochapsdeli.

Where does motivation come from? How do we find the strength to stay disciplined when times get tough? In this podcast, we delve into the story of two chaps endurance the challenges, the highs and lows, and where the motivation came from for starting such an ambitious project during a worldwide pandemic.

You can expect to learn about discipline, purpose, transformation and why giving up is never an option! Enjoy!

Produced and edited by Brian Lincoln

Intro by Chris Bent

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I’ve been trying for a long time to get my thoughts together on social media. Every podcast I do for the most part we end up talking about how this technology seems to be the crux of so many individual and social problems. The question of why has always bothered me? It's just an app? It doesn't really do anything? Surely we would be aware if something were really wrong? (estimated reading time 9 minutes)

In this solo podcast, in light of reason events and the talk of personal safety for women, I wanted to go through some practical self defence concepts and some of the mindset which I’ve gained from years of combat training, mainly for women though not exclusively.

I’ve taught self defence in Dublin, Germany, and Belfast, have a black belt in Bujinkan Ninjutsu, and have also spent a large time studying human beings, particularly our nature, violence, and evil. This is something which I take very seriously and which I believe everyone should.

In this podcast I delve into the attitude of self defence, practical tips and strategy’s, the nature of evil, and the mind of psychopathic men. I hope it is useful for you and I will be doing actual classes once we are allowed out to help women develop the skills to be safe and confidant in a dangerous world.

***trigger warnings: there is discussion of sexual assault situations that may be distressing.

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An emotional story about how I was born as a baby who couldn’t read. (estimated reading time 2 minutes)

A cracking interview with a Professional boxer, businessman, and close friend, Tony Browne. Tony is a former Irish Heavyweight champion, Eindenhoven box cup champion, and currently 3-0 in his already impressive professional career, with an upcoming bout against former IBF world champion Hassim Ouma in the next two weeks. We have been friends for a long time and gone through a lot and in this podcast, we reflect on what the path of discipline in fighting sports has taught us, the highs and lows of individual sports, learning to lose, and desiring greatness. Definitely not one to be missed!

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Some quick Monday Morning Inspo from ‘The Personal MBA’ author Josh Kaufman which I found particularly potent (estimated reading time 1 minute)

We did it!
After an initial rumbling with some audio equipment, I and @yaz Matthews accomplished our podcast! The first official in-person interview!
Yaz is a creative and mental health advocate and we spoke about social media, mental health, evil marketing, young women, eating disorders, consciences, subcortical drives, and self-acceptance.
This one is emotional and just a trigger warning we do discuss eating disorders and Yaz's journey through hers so you know, and of course, we are not psychologists or therapists so we don't presume to offer professional advice just two people searching for greater understanding through creative conversation. Enjoy!
Produced and edited by the mighty @Brianlincoln
Intro by Chris bent

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This week I’m talking to Siofra McCann (my sister), who is a long-time contributor to the blog and has a BA in psychology, a keen interest in mental health, and is soon embark on an MA in developmental play therapy, learning about children and motherhood in between.In this podcast, we talk about children, technology, relationships, pornography, young men, mental health, interior decorating, remembering you have a body, and much more! Produced and edited by @brianlincoln. Intro by Chris Bent

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Casual relationships always start out fun… (estimated reading time 4 minutes)

An interview with Mr. James Carter, Abstract artist, psychedelic voyager, boulder-er, Berlin local, and close friend, following the launch of his new website at :www.jamescarterartist.com.

In this podcast, we talk about the hidden rules and responsibilities of creativity, artistic anxieties, the highs and lows of the session, being a bold boy in school, mental health, entrepreneurship, growing up, and of course, complaining about Dublin. Enjoy!

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Some productivity hacks for those who want to achieve more but do less (estimated reading time 3 minutes)

POV: You’re sitting on the couch. Your girlfriend comes in, you’re sitting there, minding your own business. She looks at you.

‘You SUCK!’ she says…Want to know more? (estimated reading time 2 minutes)

New podcast today which is also the first interview podcast I've EVER Done! With the uber-talented @philihalton, Editor in chief of @goblinmagazine, skateboarder, entrepreneur, boat maker, writer, and more, following on from his smashing article 'Blessed with a Curse'.In the podcast, we talk about mental health, social media, skateboarding, entrepreneurship, hating school, growing up, being disciplined, Dublin City, helping elderly people, and more. Enjoy! Produced and edited by @brianlincoln

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A morning routine to fix anxiety in these unsettling times.

A powerful guest post from Philip Halton, creator and editor of goblin Skateboard magazine, on mental health and his journey.

Searching for an answer to the modern epidemic of loneliness, alienation, and the crisis of meaning in the West

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Exploring the problem of loneliness in the modern world across three levels, object, subjective and cultural loneliness, and offering a unique perspective on how we need to treat this problem and the crisis of meaning in general.

Lockdown 3 has landed and this one stings the most. How can we survive? Thrive? And not fall into the abyss? It is easy to overlook the simple stuff so here is some practical advice on what I'm doing to keep a level head in a stressful time.

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There has never been a better time to be a creative person, so why is anybody waiting around? I have so much information built up on this topic that I felt there was no way I couldn't share what I've learned and hopefully benefit anybody that is starting or considering starting, taking their skill, passion, or hobby to the next level.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

20 Lessons From 2020, reflections on what I learned from everbodies least favourite year, dealing with mortality, human nature, and running face-first into glass windows

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A humorous look at my book writing and publishing process, the battle with Amazon, and what writing is all about in the first place.

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Most of the times I’ve fallen in love, it’s been like walking head first
into a telephone pole while texting on the phone… (estimated reading time 5
minutes).

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The insider scoop on what fella’s need to know about the fairer sex, and improve their relationships with women.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mahonmccann.substack.com

The first of a weekly podcasts to go along with the written blog posts: How
To Save Young Men.

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I have heard it said the ‘21st Century is the age of revenge’, what is revenge all about? And why is it so prevalent in modern society? (estimated reading time 6 minutes).

Happy International Men’s internet people, I’ve thought about this question for 26 years of my life; what the hell went wrong? And how do we fix it? Find out more inside. (estimated reading time 15 minutes)

What do women want in a man? After reading the book ‘A Billion Wicked Thoughts’, were two Google neuroscientists analyzed the pornographic search histories of a billion people online, I have some interesting revelations… Find out more in this week’s article (Estimated Reading time 8 minutes).

Another awesome guest post from senior Philip Halton, who is fresh from his month sabbatical off social media, with some powerful and necessary thoughts about what this new technology is doing to us and relationships. (estimated reading time 8 minutes).

Here we go again, Lockdown 2. How can you survive? Thrive? And feel your best under the pressure? Find out more inside. (estimated reading time 7 minutes).

A brand new Horror story by Comhgall Mckeating. The jolt is the feeling of falling you get when you sleep and your blood pressure drops, and your body thinks you are dying…it might just save your life, or someone else… (estimated reading time 5 minutes).

What are dreams? What can they tell you about yourself? And how can you learn to analyse them? All this and more in this weeks article. ( estimated reading time 8 minutes. Contains 1658 words).

‘admittedly, if you are going to meet an alien from planet Venus, Berlin is probably the best place to do it…’ (estimated 7 minutes. Contains 1452 words)

Guest post from Mr Axel McHugh, on his recent achievement of 100 days off the pints. What has he learned? The pros and the cons? Not one to be missed! (Estimated reading time 5 minutes).

Seven ways to avoid a bad relationship, personality, past baggage, goals, embodiment, mastering the skill of relationships, and answering the question do opposites attract? Not one to be missed! (Estimated reading time 14 minutes, a small investment, for the rest of your life).

Time for Sober October again. I talk about some funny drinking stuff, add a sprinkling of inspiration, and layout more flavored ingredients than a cookbook. (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes. Contains 1450 words).

Ever wonder why people believe strange things? Find out more. (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes. Contains 1386 words).

A follow on from last weeks article, this time looking at the dudes. What is it the ladies need to know about us? Find out more inside. (Estimated reading time: 10 minutes, 30 seconds. Contains 2127 words).

The insider scoop on what fella’s need to know about the fairer sex, and improve their relationships with women. (Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. Contains 1573 words).

A post by guest writer Philip Halton on why he recently befriended an 80-year-old woman who lives on his street, how stories bring us closer together, and the long lost art of conversation post-lockdown. (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes. Contains 1561 words).

A brief trip through the history of Derry and the phenomena of the Irish Staycation post-Covid 19. (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes. Contains 1410 words).

What is a self-image? And how do you get a better one? Find out more inside. (Estimated reading time: 6 minutes. Contains 1222 words).

Exploring the very real possibility of a United Ireland within our lifetime in light of recent events: Brexit, the coronavirus, and 100 years of Irish partition. (Estimated reading time: 15 minutes. Contains 3029 words).

A guest blog post by Goblin skateboarding magazine founder and editor, Philip Halton, on Dublin, the history, the wit, the spirit, and the character that he knows and loves. (Estimated reading time: 10 minutes. Contains 1971 words).

A little bit of writing about what my mission is, why I write, and what is coming next. (Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. Contains 605 words).

I am officially six months off the booze! What did I learn? Am I drinking right now to forget it all? Find out more inside. (Estimated reading time: 11 minutes, 30 seconds. Contains 2292 words).

A Guest memoir by writer and martial artist Martin McCann (my dad), on his fifty years spent in martial arts and the warrior's mindset. (Estimated reading time: 11 minutes. Contains 2126 words).

An article by guest blogger Aine McCann, on heartbreak and how to survive the darker side of love. (Estimated reading time: 7 minutes. Contains 1340 words).

My journey from Atheist boy to a God-fearing young man. (Estimated reading time: 8 minutes, 30 seconds. Contains 1731 words).

An antidote to conformity in the digital age. (Estimated reading time: 11 minutes. Contains 2150 words).

Another guest article from Siofra McCann on her experience with dyslexia and grappling with a ‘different learning ability’. (Estimated reading time: 8 minutes, 40 seconds. Contains 1738 words).

How kindness and compassion can kill a young person’s quest for independence. (Estimated reading time: 6 minutes. Contains 1210 words).

A post for mental health awareness week, how can you get control over your mind? (Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Contains 1083 words).

A blow by blow account of my recent battle with the beast from the far east aka the Coronavirus. (Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Contains 980 words).

A guest article by psychology student Siofra McCann, on the A-B-C’s of grown-up life. (Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Contains 1052 words).

What are the social consequences of a pandemic? Social collapse? An Authoritarian nightmare? Find out inside. (Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 40 seconds. Contains 1344 words).

The secret to life, the cosmos, and eating elephants. Read more inside. (Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 30 seconds. Contains 1116 words).

Is traditional Masculinity a prison that young men need to escape? Or the long lost key to unlocking their true potential? (Estimated reading time: 11 minutes. Contains 2272 words).

Do you know the wisdom of being an idiot? Are you just being an idiot?! (Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 30 seconds. Contains 1331 words).