All Things Are Full of Gods

The Mysteries of Mind and Life

De: David Bentley Hart

Narrado por: Rachael Beresford

In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"

So begins David Bentley Hart's exploration of the mystery of consciousness. He systematically subjects the mechanical view of nature that has prevailed in Western culture for four centuries to dialectical interrogation. He argues through the gods' exchanges that the foundation of all reality is spiritual or mental rather than material. The structures of mind, organic life, and even language attest to an infinite act of intelligence in all things that we may as well call God.

Engaging contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind, free will, revolutions in physics and biology, the history of science, computational models of mind, artificial intelligence, information theory, linguistics, cultural disenchantment, and the metaphysics of nature, Hart calls listeners back to an enchanted world in which nature is the residence of mysterious and vital intelligences. He suggests that there is a very special wisdom to be gained when we, in Psyche's words, "devote more time to the contemplation of living things and less to the fabrication of machines."

©2024 David Bentley Hart (P)2024 Tantor

Wow

What a trip. Greek gods having a high level philosophical conversation about what matters most is a tour de force. Loved it.

Playing Chess.

Reading this book felt like watching a master chess player locked in an intense battle with himself, each move calculated over days, while I stood at a distance, captivated yet completely unaware of what the rules even are.

I suppose this is a book meant for minds sharper than mine. But the little I did grasp was absolutely magnificent.

Beautifully written, but all characters speak with the same vocabulary

The characters have no noticeable divergence in their speech patterns. This is the reason I dislike fiction. Fortunately the matters at hand are worth the consistency. Great book.

It's all in the mind

Beautiful narration of an argument for metaphysical idealism in the form of a platonic dialogue. There is a minor editorial oversight in the second chapter of Day 1, where the narrator announces the end the book. The interruption is trivial, and no content is lost. What is the book about? "We're talking about Infinite Mind as the ground and end of all things, and about individual minds and bodies as finite contractions or irisations or crystallizations or radiations of that more original reality." (I had to look up irisations.) And more.

This is classic Hart - putting a torch to the dogma of mechanistic materialism while, maybe more than ever before, revealing who he believes God to be. As a Christian who learns from other traditions, I found his upanishadic reasonings a veritable feast. This book pairs well with his The Experience of God, That All Shall be Saved, and, most likely, his future work on monistic Christology (see his Stanton lectures online). Hart is giving us an astounding vision of reality. All Things Are Full of Gods is the philosophical work of a lifetime.

Haven’t finished but bringing attention to the glitch

At 0:01:50 into the second chapter there is a glitch where it says “this concludes this book” but the. It continues where it left off after 30 seconds da or so

A singular work of philosophy of mind

Having read the works of Chalmers and Dennett and generally attempted to keep myself up-to-date with the latest on mind, I can say that this is a brilliant work. Hart sets his sights on many facets of physicalist arguments and finds contradictions, absurdities, and incoherences in the fabric of their assumptions. If Hart’s religious background or occasional snide remarks are a turn off for you, I’m afraid you’ll miss out on one of the most cogently reasoned idealist defenses ever penned. Hart goes out of his way to steel man his opposition using the form of the dialogue and I think he’s quite successful in that endeavor. A totally brilliant philosophical work that anybody who cares about mind, consciousness, or being should read.

Not convincing, but still worth a listen.

The Device was clever—Greek Gods debating modern philosophy. It might have been tighter if it were just two, as two of them rarely spoke, anyway. Also, it might have been better if different narrators handled the parts. Of course, the Author has a particular point of view, so it was 3 against 1, and the "materialist" never had a chance, ceding way too much ground. ;) Nevertheless, it mostly worked well and made for a largely engaging, well-written book.
As for the content -
The book was well written and brilliantly argued, And I have some sympathy for his flavor of Idealism sprinkled with a bit of Eastern mysticism (I know he is Christian, but this didn't sound like any version of the Christian God that I am familiar with). That being said, in the end, I found the arguments lacking. When speaking about Consciousness, it somewhat worked. I know all of the arguments regarding the hard problem, and it has broken many an otherwise rational brain. And he did the arguments justice.

I also, give him credit for trying his best to steelman the arguments from the other side.

But I always got the sense that his arguments ended up falling short. He is right to criticize the Materialist for evoking emergence, whenever something "magical" happens in science that we don't quite understand. But his evoking incredulity and its evil twin "irreducible complexity" is the flip side of this coin. As if he knows that is what he is doing, he goes out of his way to assure us that isn't what he is doing, but it really is. This becomes quite clear when he veers away from consciousness and tries to make the same arguments against evolution. We know with almost absolute certainty how teleology "emerges" from basic chemistry. The principles are well-understood, and we have mountains of evidence regarding how it happens -- with specificity. So this isn't some kind of magical hard-emergence, and his arguments against this just don't hold water.
Anyway, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to be challenged on these issues. Well done.

The most cogent and complete framing of the argument within the book title

Narrator only has two voices she alternates between, which is a little bit worse than if she used only one.