Episode Transcript
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Hello.
This is Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geistepisode 79.
Welcome back.
The purpose of this podcast isto explore philosophy psychology
and modern science.
With a special emphasis on thegreat philosopher, George Wilham
Friedrich Hagle.
And just to note, as regularlisteners know, we often explore
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as well.
The psychological teachings ofCarl Young.
As well as the media.
Theorist Marshall McLuhan plusother philosophers, such as
American pragmatic philosopher,Charles Pierce, French
philosopher, Henri Bergson andthe British analytic
philosopher, Bertrand Russell,just to name a few.
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All of whom are relevant totoday's world.
And that's what I intend to dowith this podcast.
And in particular, this episode,and that is to make philosophy
and psychology.
Actionable and understanding andacting within today's world for
best results.
Now in this episode.
I want to get at an issue thatis at the core of Hegel's
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philosophy.
And that is his introductorytriad of being nothing and
becoming.
With which he begins his MagnumOpus, the science of logic.
And in particular, I will.
Try to show how this triad canalso provide the basis for a
success model for individualachievement.
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And I have clearly covered thebeing nothing becoming triad
numerous times here in thevarious episodes of the podcast,
but it never gets old.
It always bears fruit whenre-examined.
So going to start with that.
And the beginning of Hegel'sscience of logic.
At the beginning of it all thereis being and nothing, both, both
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being in nothing.
That is because when you stripeverything away from being, you
left with nothing.
So being actually turns out tobe nothing.
They turn out to be the samething that is because being
without any presuppositions isreally nothing.
There's nothing left.
But on the other hand, nothingin this context is not just an
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absence of something.
But it's pure nothingnessitself.
And in this respect, it has itsown being.
So it flips back to being, beingso.
Even though both being innothing, maintain their
essential immediacy, pure being,and pure nothingness.
They each turn out to be theother.
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And this is Hegel's first use ofidentity and difference
something he returns to againand again.
But what is key here?
Is that Hagle demonstrates thatit, rather than an analyst
changing back and forth being tonothing, nothing to being and so
on, it settles into one newnotion.
And that is becoming H becomesthe other.
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And now becoming is the centralnotion, the immediacy, the truth
of being in nothing.
So.
Now, this may sound like aphilosophical word game.
But it is not.
It is absolutely important tounderstand this concept in order
to understand how our world ismade up.
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First of all many asked thequestion from young children to
philosophers alike.
Why is there something ratherthan nothing?
And we did an entire episode inthis question back in 2021
episode number 29.
And there I showed the fourpossible answers to that
question.
Why is there something ratherthan nothing first?
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First answer.
Is that the universe was createdand I have nothing that's by God
as many religions teach.
The second possible answer isthere was no creation.
The universe just is why doesthere have to be a creation?
Why can't it just.
Exist.
The third is that the universein fact popped into existence by
some quantum fluctuation, as weobserve and subatomic particles.
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And fourth, the fourth possibleanswer is that the question
itself is a false choice becauseboth being and nothing have
always existed.
And I presented the argument inthat episode.
That number four was in fact,the answer in my view.
Both being in nothing exists asmoments within the core reality
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of becoming.
Now I realize this is a hardconcept to wrap one's mind
around.
We tend to think of being as astatic concept and nothing is
the absence of being, but thisis not what Hagle is saying.
His premise is that both are twosides of one singular notion,
which is becoming, which iscalled becoming two sides of a
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coin, two ends of the samestick.
And that is becoming.
Becoming is the reality.
The ontological reality ischange.
But not just random change.
Purposeful evolution you seebecoming must constantly evolve
and grow to stay ahead ofnothing.
It is life itself.
And I believe this ID is easilyunderstood in the context of the
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flow of time.
The past and the future both donot exist, but the present
moment does, but it will alsodie and go into nothing the
past.
But at the same moment, thefuture will move into the
present view.
And both things happenconcurrently simultaneously.
And there is.
His identity and difference hereas well.
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The present moment persists inthis identity of becoming that
contains both being and nothing.
The present moment is anidentity in difference of the
future becoming the now and thenow becoming the past.
Which ties the two together.
As one.
And then what we are calling,becoming.
Now we've often talked here inthe podcast about the right
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brain left brain divide.
The left brain is always wantsto freeze things into something
that is there, isolate somethingand freeze it.
The left brain wants toseparate.
And isolate, as I said, But inthe real world, nothing is
frozen.
All in everything is constantlyundergoing the process of
change.
And even if it doesn't move,it's moving in time.
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And this big picture process isbetter understood by the right
brain.
Now, what is important tounderstand is that underneath
all this is thought, thought isalive.
Thought is life thought iscomprehension and thought moves.
It becomes.
Change is not just some blindprocess going on with mindless
subatomic particles.
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Thought is that the bottom of itall?
Hey, hill calls this, the ideaor the concept, but pure thought
must actualize itself.
And it does this through nature.
It needs nature.
Its other.
To provide the ground foritself, actualization.
And this self-actualizationprocess is what Hegel calls,
spirit or Geist in German.
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But it's the same formula.
If you will.
We're being actualizes itselfthrough nothingness in the
process of becoming.
The.
Logic actualizes itself.
Through nature in, in theprocess of spirit becoming it's
a three-step process, beingnothing becoming, and likewise,
my nature and spirit, this isHegel's.
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Triad, if you will.
And I'm going to show in amoment how this can be the basis
for a success formula.
Spirit is becoming it's it'salive in the world.
It's the basis of the world.
It's what drives things forwardand it's an age old historical
process.
It didn't start with, with humanbeings.
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It certainly goes.
through fits and starts.
It's been going on over time,over centuries, over millennia.
The light, the life and the loveand the freedom of spirit is
increasing.
You know, one big mistake thatEinstein made perhaps as big as
was to think that time was anillusion, that there was only
one block space time where thepast and the future all exists
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together in one.
One entity like a finished bookon the shelf or a movie that is
sitting in the can, so to speak.
But by itself, the book on theshelf and the movie and the can
are dead.
It is the live reader.
Or the live viewer, the moviethat we experiences the life
described in the book or themovie.
So Einstein was essentiallysaying that the universe is
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dead.
True.
Change is impossible in theblock space time.
We may think that things arehappening and changing, but
Einstein felt that this was justa stubbornly persistent
illusion, as he famously said,Now nothing against Einstein
here.
We certainly revolutionized ourunderstanding of the world.
But it got this wrong.
And never really accepted theempirical findings of quantum
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physics is the final answer.
He felt there must be more anunderlying deterministic cause
of the quantum weirdness.
But he did deny the essentialnature of time of change and
have the freedom necessary toenact real change.
And this was his big mistake.
I mentioned the left brain'shabit of taking things in
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viewing them as lifeless stilllife's like a painting or a
photograph.
That's not how real life is.
And nobody pointed this outbetter than Xeno back in ancient
Greece.
You probably heard many of hisfamous paradoxes.
We've covered them here before.
Like you can never walk to theother side of the room because
you have to go halfway first.
And when you reach that point,you have to go halfway again.
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And this goes on forever.
So you never actually reach theother side of the room.
And also there's the one aboutthe tortoise and the Hare.
If you give the tortoise a head,start in a race against the
hair, the hair can never passthe tortoise.
Because he must get to where thetortoise was first.
And by the time he gets therethat.
The, the tortoise would havemoved somewhat slowly, but he
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would've moved forward ahead.
And then the hair would have toreach to that point.
And then by the time the hairreaches that point, that
tortoise would have movedfurther ahead.
And this continues on forever.
So the.
The hair can ever pass ittowards.
Uh, now what this shows is thatyou cannot freeze a moment of
time that the left brain modelbreaks down in real life.
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Time does not break down intodiscrete atomic units.
It is a flow and we are in thatflow.
And this is so important tounderstand.
Now it brings up a big question.
Who or what thought up the soulscheme?
What we seem to be in the middleof it.
And we also don't have anowner's manual that we're given
at birth.
Uh, we don't have a clue towhat's going on here other than
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our own instincts, our owncapabilities and what our
thought tells us.
And this can be a lot, actually.
In fact, I believe it's enoughif we choose to think about it.
Now my contention is that thereis no other.
Thing or being, or God behindthe curtain, driving the
process.
We are the process.
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And I believe Hagle shows thatit can not really be any other
way.
Mine thought is fundamental.
At the root level, it can onlyconceive itself in a state of
becoming, given the dichotomy ofpure being and pure nothing.
And it carries this out on themacro level, through spirit by
overcoming the nothingness orthe finite world, the dead
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world, the Einsteinian world.
To a better awareness of itsfreedom.
And this freedom is always agrowth and evolution of
self-understanding.
But the key question here isthis, why does mine need nature
to do this?
Why the struggle.
Well, the answer goes back againto Hegel's triad regarding being
in nothing.
Being only becomes real bysettling into becoming becomes
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determined to being, being thatis there and becoming entails
movement.
Abstract mind has no movement.
It's just an abstraction andoutline.
So to speak no movement.
Because of this in order tolive, it must move within nature
to become real.
An analogy.
Is this a script for a movie?
It's it's a script, but it's notthe movie itself.
The actual movie brings themotion to the thing.
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Now it is also important torealize that this process of
becoming it goes back beforethere were even humans.
To the early life forms thatstruggled for greater freedom
and awareness to allow forproductive.
Evolution.
It goes back even further thanthat to the stars and the
planets, which, which evolve toallow conscious life to emerge.
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And it goes even further back tothe big bang and.
Before the big bang.
When the laws of nature wereactually established.
Uh, most likely in a previousexistence in a previous round,
and we've discussed this herebefore.
It's amazing concept.
The laws of nature themselvesmay have evolved from round to
round from big bang to big flameout or whatever happens at the
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end again and again.
To support this evolution.
And this is the evolution ofconsciousness of freedom, of
light of love.
Of life.
And.
Charles Pearson.
I mentioned held this beliefthat the laws of nature evolved,
they evolved to.
For a better life.
To provide life and they evolvethen for life to provide mind.
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And several contemporaryscientists also holds this view,
including physicist Lee.
Smolin who've.
Talked about here.
So, what does this mean for allof us?
Well, it means.
Many things actually.
First we are the ones that aresteering the ship.
And guess what we also isindividual.
Finally, bodies fit into thebeing nothing becoming triad as
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well.
We came from nothing and we willreturn to nothing.
And our mission here.
If we choose to accept it is toenhance the evolution that is
proceeding within us and outsideus during our time here, not
just to accept the status quo,but to move things forward.
And this is what Hagle calls.
True infinity.
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True.
Infinity does not mean livingforever, but it means breaking
out of the bonds and constraintsof everyday existence to make
things better.
And when you make things betterfor yourself, you often make
things better for others aswell.
You make things better foryourself by not taking from
others, but by improving thingsfor you, for yourself, for your
family, for your community, forsociety at large.
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Now I want to make an importantpoint here.
Oftentimes we don't seize onopportunities because we are not
actively looking for them, butthey are out there.
Allow me to relate an example.
It's called the red car test.
Red car test.
Take a moment to think about thelast time you took a drive in a
car anywhere he went to thestore, you went up for a drive,
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whatever.
Okay.
The last time.
Got it now.
I asked you during that drive,how many red cars did you
notice?
Oh, you can't recall.
Don't worry, neither can I.
But if I told you to go on for adrive now, Go anywhere, drive a
couple of miles and I'll pay you50 bucks,$50.
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50 pounds, whatever yourcurrency is for every red car
you see.
And I'm sure you would be thenactively looking for them and
you would find some.
Now life is like that.
We have to have intention andintent.
Once we have a goal, we begin tosee the things around us that
will help us succeed.
And reach our goals.
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It's an example.
Let me go back to when I wasfirst getting out of college and
I was looking for a job.
My father had me go to see anumber of his friends.
To see if they could give meadvice or provide me with key
contacts of their own.
And I'd go into their office.
I'd sit down and basically justsay something like, I am looking
for my first job, anysuggestions, and they would
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usually respond by saying, well,what are you interested in
doing?
And I would say somethingreally, you know, Plain, like I
would like an entry-levelposition with career potential
in the management, and I'm ahard worker.
And I kept repeating this in.
And interview after anything,nothing seemed to happen.
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They would say something like,well, I'm sure you'll find
something good luck.
And then send me on my way.
And for many meetings like thisone person finally confronted me
and he said, Greg, you know,when you come in to a contact to
talk, it's good to have aspecific goal in mind.
Such as an industry or specificservice area that you want to
work in and be as specific aspossible as to the exact job you
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seek.
For example, it would be betterif you came in here and said, I
would like to work in financialservices, particularly the
investment business,specifically as a financial
advisor handling other people'smoney.
Do you have any contacts in thatspecific area that I could meet
with?
It might have an entry levelopening or that I could at least
discuss possibilities with.
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And it was great advice.
I realized that I was expectingthe opportunities to come to me,
but the world doesn't work thatway.
I needed to have a firm andspecific goal in mind and
express that goal to others.
That's when things startedhappening.
I needed to ask my father'scontext for recommendations and
helping me achieve my specificgoals.
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So I changed my approach in Lomihold, everything changed and the
meetings went much better and Iwas able to express a specific
goal, which triggered a memoryin the context mind, and they
were able to provide me withmuch better advice and follow up
contacts.
And I eventually secured myfirst job.
As an aside, it was in marketingresearch, not financial
services, but I just use thefinancial services here as an
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example.
My point in all, this is thatthe notion of becoming entails
more than just getting by.
Is am I going beyond the givencircumstances to create new and
better opportunities?
And one must actively seek forthese opportunities.
They're not going to just cometo us.
We have to go out and, and huntfor them.
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And the universe will respond.
Our intention and our activityis key here.
We all have dreams and we canfulfill these dreams by having a
specific burning desire.
So let's put this in thelanguage of the pig alien triad.
The first element is our burningdesire.
The second element is the worldout there.
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The reality of the situation youhave to deal with.
The third element is to bravelyenter this world with our
intention firmly in place to letthe world know of our intention
and actively seek to make ithappen.
I know this sounds real simple.
But if one can break it downlike this, I think it can help
one see where they may have gonewrong in the past.
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For example, regarding step one.
Do I have clear objectives?
I have ever written them down.
Have I told my goals openly toothers.
All these actions are criticalfor the first stage of
implanting the desire withinboth in yourself and in the
world at large.
Yeah, we're, we're connected tothe world at large.
So when we implant this desire,it's in the world.
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And then, and then the worldstarts to react.
And next regarding the secondstep.
Have I accurately assessed whenI'm up against, out there.
What are the obstacles?
What are the ways around thosebarriers?
And there's always a way wherethe will is strong enough.
There is a way.
The third step involves action.
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One must act.
You can't score a basket unlessyou take a shot.
You can't make a sale withoutasking for the sale.
And you can't ask for a saleunless you're speaking with a
prospect.
So ask yourself, am I taking theright action?
And also.
Do I have a do it now?
Propensity for action.
Remember, never put off totomorrow.
What can be done today?
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Often it is necessary to actfirst, then evaluate even if
this leads to problems.
I do it now.
Attitude will get more results.
Some call it the ready fire aimway of getting things done.
And I believe this is a greatstrategy.
Also an important thing is makesyou Shefsky hall of fame, duke
basketball coach used to say.
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If you're not making mistakes,you're not trying hard enough.
So in your daily quest expecterrors.
Don't freak out when theyhappen, but, but embrace them.
If you're not making errors, youare not pushing hard enough.
And also these errors are someof the best learning devices for
improvement.
This is actually how we grow.
if you try to avoid air is toomuch, you're keeping the status
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quo.
You've got to really.
Shake things up and get outthere and do things.
And there will be some errorsand you'll learn from them and
you will improve from them.
We don't want the status quo.
We want to go beyond the statusquo.
So.
To summarize here.
The metaphysical foundation ofan 18th century philosopher.
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George Wilhem freighter.
K.
Or can provide.
Us with a roadmap, if you will,for success.
I believe this to be true.
And it's up to you and no oneelse to go for it.
Are you up for it?
I believe if you've beenlistening to this podcast over
the last few years, I think youare up for it.
So again, the three steps basedon the galleon triad are this
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one think.
Get that objective in your mind.
To assess the, the territory.
What, what are the obstacles?
That.
the, you need to overcome toachieve your objective.
And the three act.
All three of those are soimportant.
This is a simple process thatcan allow you to achieve so
much.
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So that is a wrap for thisepisode.
Thanks so much for listening.
I really do appreciate your timethat you spend with these
episodes.
I look forward to your feedback.
You can reach me on the podcast,Facebook page at cunning of
Geist.
I post there often in betweenepisodes in it.
We get into some really greatdiscussions with page followers.
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So please like, and follow thatpage.
That's important at cunning ofGeist on Facebook.
And please tell your like-mindedfriends about the podcast.
Help spread the word.
So I'm in closing.
Once again, I say.
Um, Gregory Nowak.
This is the cunning of Geist.
See you next time.