# Cosmos Café: Irreducible Mind \[2/6\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cosmos Café\ **Tags:** event\ **Created:** [February 3, 2018, 9:05am UTC](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-irreducible-mind-2-6/1715 "2018-02-03T09:05:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![achronon](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/infiniteconversations/user_avatar/www.infiniteconversations.com/achronon/32/3458_2.png) [@achronon](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/u/achronon)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2018, 9:00am UTC](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-irreducible-mind-2-6/1715/6 "2018-02-03T09:00:59Z")
> [@Cosmos Café: Season 1 \[November, 2017 – March, 2018\]](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-season-1-november-2017-march-2018/1620/33): > > So, I bought the book (Irreducible Mind) and read the first chapter. I’m happy to take part in a discussion on this, but I warn you in advance, I don’t “buy” the argument. Perhaps it is my turn to play the “curmudgeon”! Hear! Hear! Love live the Curmudgeon! Why not, dear sir? I’m always glad when there’s someone around that raises objections that can be dealt with (not mere that’s-rubbish-and-we-need-not-discuss-it types that are all to common these days.) > [@Cosmos Café: Season 1 \[November, 2017 – March, 2018\]](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-season-1-november-2017-march-2018/1620/33): > > I am open to the idea that I have misread Kelly, but I am not particularly inclined to adopt a cartesian framework any time soon… I find the discussion of the Integral interesting because I believe it might offer an alternative to cartesian approaches, although there are elements of the discussion around the Integral that do worry me (the insistence on the Absolute, for example). But that is maybe a discussion for another time. As a kind of “spoiler alert” not everything in Kelley is all that it appears to be. I’m reading the last 10 pages of the tome and, to my small mind, the book depicts a rather interesting and fascinating journey. For example, Henry Stapp (mentioned in the thread on Sri Aurobindo) whom Mohrhoff engaged head-on makes a substantial appearance near the end. So, for those of us who injest the whole tome (or relevant chunks of it), there will definitely have to be a “discussion [at] another time.” Like you, Geoffrey, I was haunted by a number of **_doubts_** in the first _two_ chapters, but now, having traversed the scope of the work, I’m in a much better position to start formulating **_questions_** , which, in my experience, is a much more productive way forward. (One of the issues that I have with Sloterdijk is that I’ve never been able to get to that question phase.) > [@Cosmos Café: Season 1 \[November, 2017 – March, 2018\]](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-season-1-november-2017-march-2018/1620/33): > > I suppose I am worried that our theoretical stances might get in the way of the open discussions we have been having. And maybe I am simply projecting my own fears in saying that. As you will recall – being the die-hard hermeneuticist that I am – we _cannot_ approach anything without bringing our theoretical stances with us. They are there whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge them or not. This is my on-going questioning of fundamental assumptions and presuppositions. What I find most enjoyable about the discussions here is that these become clear over time because, regardless of what they may be or how firmly we may hold them, we actually _talk to_ (not at) and _listen to_ (not just hear) each other. That is what constitutes, for me at least, what I call _human_ interaction, as opposed to _personal_ interaction, whereby “human” in this context means “the person in his humanness (or as the Germans would say, his _Menschsein_)”, and “personal” is indicative of a kind of “individual personality” (which most often manifests as “someone I agree with”). Or, to put it no anything but Gebserian terms, it’s a whole 'nother level. --- _[View the full topic](https://www.infiniteconversations.com/t/cosmos-cafe-irreducible-mind-2-6/1715)._