Fred Hoyle’s IFS Lecture December 1982

Once the reader gets to the later parts, it becomes somewhat abstract and the reader may not be able to get through it without a background in chemistry and physics. Chapter Nine, when the phrase “Order Out of Chaos” is developed, is difficult. Despite this, it is much more accessible than a scientific paper on the subject. It may take two or three reads to fully absorb the ideas presented. Overall it is one of my favorite reads.

Some important conclusions from the book:

• The arrow of time objectively exists and it arises from non-equilibrium and irreversibility at the microscopic level.
• The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics can be understood as a selection principal. It operates as a negative on allowable initial conditions, in other words it restricts systems with certain initial conditions from existing.
• Time travel to the past is not allowed by thermodynamics because time reversal requires infinite information concerning the initial conditions of the system, an impossibility to an observer in the universe. This implies that information is closely connected to irreversibility and time.
• Thermodynamics can be expressed from dynamics through the idea of correlations and internal-time operators. Thus, dynamics has been extended once again (general relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory).
• The universe as a whole is in a non-equilibrium state and it is an irreversible process with pockets of reversible dynamics.
• In general, one of the goals of the authors is to make dynamics and thermodynamics consistent with each other.

Description from channel:

Collection of Academic Philosophy Videos (both Analytic Philosophy & Continental Philosophy): Logic, Epistemology, History of Ideas, Consciousness, Skepticism, Science, Ontology, Political Theory, Ethics, Religion, etc.

I put together a music playlist based on Grof’s recommendations for your benefit. The songs are in random order. Let me know if I should add/remove any:

Holotropic Breathing – Beginning

Holotropic Breathing – Middle

Holotropic Breathing – End

Also, informative interview with Grof:

In a suitable analogy, Grof declares LSD to be psychiatry’s fundamental tool; it is like the astronomer’s telescope or the biologist’s microscope.  Grof refers to the powerful ability of LSD to facilitate the revealing of deep unconscious systems like that of sonar or radar, revealing the largest and most relevant emotional disturbances beneath the surface of the unconscious ocean. It allows therapists to have a direct reading of a patient’s relevant thought systems and important experiences. Readers begin to realize how incredibly important this molecule is for the well-being of the psyche and the spiritual and mental development of humanity.

For a simple introduction, I would suggest The Holotropic Mind rather than this book. Or if you prefer an audio book, Audible has The Transpersonal Vision. I would also recommend joining the email list for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

Growing up in Austria he eventually participated (drafted) in World War II and became a Nazi officer. Shot in the spine and disabled for life he went back to university where he studied music, theatre, and science. He became an important intellectual in the philosophy of science. After the war he participated and became a key member of the yearly meetings in Alpbach. His ideas were influenced by Karl Popper (initially), Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Felix Ehrenhaft. He eventually found his way to Berkeley, California where he became a professor. He taught mostly at Berkeley and ETH Zürich.

His life and ideas were intimately connected with many great thinkers of the 20th century: including Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos. The autobiography is a good introduction to Feyerabend. Getting to know the background and personal experiences of the great thinker helps gain perspective while reading his philosophical works.

I wonder what, if anything, Feyerabend had to say about Alan Watts? In some ways I feel that Feyerabend has helped to add elements of Eastern Philosophy to Western Philosophy. For instance, Feyerabend’s principal that anything goes and his scientific anarchy seem to have a Zen or Taoist connection. His continual insistence that reality fails to be objectively expressed by language also suggests a connection, but I believe this was also expressed by Wittgenstein?

Against Method, by Paul Feyerabend, contains provocative insights into the connectedness of all human abstractions, ideologies, cultures, methodologies, etc… Feyerabend’s arguments are extremely valuable to people of all backgrounds who pursue an understanding of reality.

Feyerabend expresses an idea which hints that all human ideologies in the noosphere depend on each other in some way. This universal connectedness therefore indicates that we cannot declare one ideology better than another. In other words there does not exist an objective form of judgement and all people must allow anything that can express itself to express itself, a complete anarchy of ideas. I would add that it is only when institutions or social structures attempt to fight this anarchy that progress, as defined by various definitions, ceases to exist or becomes retarded.

Traditions, language, theories, facts, statements, and questions — all related in a complex web of dependencies:

Thought provoking interview with Karl Popper (unfortunately the audio is not too good).