The debates around freedom and determinism have generally been focused on the question of whether it is possible to act in a way that is detached from some complex constellation of cause and effect. When we brush our teeth, choose a partner, or pick a job, we are asked to consider whether these acts spontaneously occur, or simply express an inevitable link in a chain of events that were set in motion at the beginning of time. These discussions ultimately revolve around how we might might reconcile our experience of being free agents, with the problem of conceiving an act unconstrained by cause and effect.
In this seminar, I want to explore the idea that these debates leads to a dead end because they take place on the wrong plane. In contrast to the question of whether there are free acts, I’ll be exploring the deeper and more disturbing idea that we are the manifestation of freedom itself. That our self-consciousness is the universe expressing its non-deterministic dimension.
I’ll be looking at how this reality is something that we attempt to flee from in various ways. But that the only way to really escape its horror is through embracing it. I’ll be arguing that, once we affirm the idea that we are the eruption of freedom in the theatre of existence, we can enter into a richer type of life. I shall also be looking at how pyrotheology can help us create “communities of freedom” in which we are able to collectively embrace this insight.
As always, it can also be watched live or later via Patreon. To access this - and all other - pyroseminars, you just need to be signed up to the Flame level, or above, on Patreon.
OTHER PYROSEMINARS INCLUDE:
Embracing the Absurd | Atheism isn’t Enough
Beyond Belief | Christianity and Ideology Critique
The Alien from Inner Space | Sin and Prometheus
On Love | The Unwanted Gift of Nothing
Embracing Failure | On Not Getting what you Want
The Tech of Pyrotheology | Transformance Art
The Tech of Pyrotheology | Decentering Practices
Freedom from Meaning | Drive, Grace, the Absurd
The Last Guru | On Fantasy and Transference
Escaping the Sitcom | On Brent and Gargoyles
Catching Light | Lewis and the Sublime
God After God | The Certainty of Doubt
Joined by Lack | The Ontic and the Metaphysical
Confronting the Holy | Whole or Hole
Losing the Lost Object | On Conversion
On Envy and Jealousy | Girard and Christology
Deranged Animal | Desire, Drive and The Thing
The Meaning in Life | Drive and the Transcendental
Alienation Times Two | Traversing the Fantasy
God Forsaking God | Conversion, Forgiveness, Joy
Who is No. 1 | Peterson, PC and the Unconscious
Is God Dead | The Event of Radical Theology
Mapping Pyrotheology | Returning to the Start
Problem or Symptom | The Zizek/Peterson Debate
The Magic Trick of Christianity
The Difference Between Identical Wines
Pyrotheology and Ultimate Concern