On Eros, Value and ErosValue

About this episode: Is the universe a random, meaningless accident? Or is there a deeper plot and hidden scripts guiding everything from the Big Bang to our own lives?In this dialogue, Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein explore the deep interconnection between Eros, Value, and desire. They introduce the concepts of ErosValue and scripts of desire, exploring several different definitions of Value.They propose that the Field of Value is not a social construct but an involutionary given, shaping the Cosmos from its inception.They also propose that story is an intrinsic structure of reality, shaped by desire and value. Stories provide coherence and meaning, forming the foundation for human rights and ethical living.Note on Source Material and Citation:Parts of the material covered in this podcast is drawn from David J. Temple’s First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, as well as the following forthcoming volumes published by the World Philosophy and Religion Press:* Reconstructing Value & Preserving Human Freedom in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Exit the Silicon Maze, Vol. 1* Stories of Inherent Cosmic Value Are Real: Love Stories Model Stories of Real Value: Personal, Global, Galactic, and Cosmic Love Stories, Toward a New World Philosophy and Religion as a Context for Our Diversity, Vol. 1-3If you deploy any material from this episode, please cite directly using the following reference:Temple, David J.,Conversations with David J. Temple, World Philosophy and Religion Press, January 2026, Episode: “On Eros, Value and ErosValue”About the Authorial Voice of David J. Temple:David J. Temple is a pseudonym created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship between Dr. Marc Gafni, Dr. Zak Stein and Ken Wilber at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, a leading international think tank whose mission is to address existential risk by articulating a shared universal Story of Value for global intimacy and global coordination. The Center focuses its work on a world philosophy, Cosmo-Erotic Humanism, as the ground for a global vision of value, economics, politics, and spiritual coherence.The Center for World Philosophy and Religion is a community-driven publication. You can subscribe for free to receive updates. To support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber for only $9/month.Chapters:0:00 — Introduction0:51 — Context Setting1:36 — Eros as Both a Quality of Being and a Quality of Becoming3:20 — The Field of Value Is the Space in Which Everything Arises and Value Is the Script of Desire of Reality5:04 — The Field of Value as an Involutionary Given6:13 — David’s Addition to the Definition of Value: Normativity, i.e. Irreducible Rightness11:18 — We Can Answer “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” Anthro-Ontologically14:14 — About First Principles and First Values15:09 — The Involutionary Given of Value Is a Script of Desire21:04 — Story Is Equally Primordial with Desire and All Stories Are Scripts of Desire24:36 — Yuval Harari Discovered a Thread: Rights Emerge from Value, but His Claim on Stories Is Performatively Contradicted in His Behavior31:42 — Invitation to the Who We Must Become CommunityEpisode Transcript:Context SettingMarc: Oh my god.Zak: Yeah. So, David dropped a note off or something, right?Marc: Yeah, David dropped a note off.. And the note is pretty much on “what is value?”—I mean, that seems to be the topic that he’s deeply interested in. Let’s see if we can look at that.He wrote a note that he sent to both of us, and then he also scrolled—I don’t know if you saw—he scrolled a couple of texts. So I want to start with the texts.He suggested that we go back to the Return to Eros material, the original material, which I wrote a book, and you wrote a very beautiful review, which was its own essay, essentially, on the Eros material.He wrote and said, “Hey, go look at that again,” which is always his way of saying we missed something that he wants us to think about.Eros as Both a Quality of Being and a Quality of BecomingMarc: When we talk about Eros, we’re very careful, in Return to Eros and in the original Mystery of Love material, to distinguish between Eros as both a quality of being and a quality of becoming.There’s what I like to call “The hijackers of Eros”. So everyone who believes in feminine value, “Eros is the feminine.”Well, no, actually, Eros is the feminine and the masculine.Zak: Yeah, and, of course, the little cherub is a man. The God of Eros in Greek myths is a man.Marc: That’s right. He’s shooting the arrow, he’s a little cherubic man. And of course, the cherubs above the ark in the temple are man and woman in most of the lineage.So just like people try and hijack Eros as the feminine, they often try and hijack Eros as the quality of pulsing, becoming. But actually, Eros has two qualities.There’s an Eros of being, which is a quality of being, and there’s an Eros of becoming.Once you get that, you get, Oh, okay.So now, as we’ve been talking with David for the last year or so about Eros as ErosValue, Eros is ErosValue. So I just want to say it through, I want to slow us down, if David’s listening, so he feels like we did it carefully.We say in our interior science equation:Eros equals the experience of radical aliveness, desiring ever deeper contact and ever greater wholeness.So that quality, that is describing this movement of becoming. But Eros is also this quality of being.Now, what we’ve said is that this equation describes Value itself. It’s this desiring of contact, Value, and ever greater wholeness, Value. That’s a new value. Right relationship, right value.The Field of Value Is the Space in Which Everything Arises and Value Is the Script of Desire of RealityMarc: So what that tells us, is that the Field of Value, when we’re asking the question of, “What is Value?”, there are two different possibilities:1) The Field of Value is the space in which everything arises.It’s very clear and elegant.Instead of us saying, “Oh, being is the space,” or “Awareness is the space in which everything arises,” we’re saying Value is epi-primordial. It’s the space in which everything arises.This one sentence would be from the perspective of the Eros of being, or the ErosValue of being. Because we’re saying Eros is Value. Value is Eros, and Eros is Value. They’re inseparable.So as ErosValue, Value is the space in which everything arises. One.Then from the perspective of the Eros of becoming, we say something, and we’ll get to this, of course, later, because it’s later in David’s chart. But we say something like,2) Value is the script of desire of reality, or: Clarified need plus clarified desire equals Value.Because both need and desire have this pulse of moving towards this pulse of becoming.So now, we have two different ways of holding the Field of Value: Value as the beingness, the space in which everything arises, and then Value as becoming, which is very, very different.It’s the exact opposite of a kind of postmodern view that says that values are a social construct that only exist on the human level, and they’re fully contrived. And there’s nothing to rest in because they’re all completely made up.No, no, no, no, no. In other words, Value emerges when the unmanifest discloses the manifest.And that disclosure is in the Field of Value.Those were in David’s text, so I thought I’d just put those on the table to start.The Field of Value as an Involutionary GivenZak: Yeah, it’s beautiful.And one way to speak of that is as the Field of Value and all the potentialities of ErosValue as involutionary givens to cosmic evolution, which is to say: downloaded into Cosmos with its genesis is the Field of Value itself.So that notion that it’s the condition for the possibility of all emergence towards what the universe is desiring, what the universe runs after. It throws out in front of itself this infinite and potentially infinitely evolvable field of ErosValue.Marc: Right. And we were talking to our dear friend the other day, it’s only when we formulated it as an involutionary given that the conversation began to find its way.Zak: Precisely. There are many semantic leverage points from the prior traditions. Many of the traditions have these ways of talking about that.Even the being-becoming kind of paradox polarity as central to whatever the primary ontic concept is.Marc: That’s exactly right. I think that’s why David was texting us.It’s clarifying now. It’s good. It’s exciting.David’s Addition to the Definition of Value: Normativity, i.e. Irreducible RightnessMarc: So, before we get to David’s letter on Value—he said to us on Value is real—let’s go back to David’s book on page 168, where we discuss First Principles and First Values. There’s a list on pages 168 and 169–170.There’s a list of First Principles and First Values, and there’s, as we both know, first-order First Principles and First Values, and there’s second-order First Principles and First Values.And the seventh, the last one in the list of first-order First Principles and First Values is, of course, Value itself.Zak: Right.Marc: So what we write here is, what David writes is:“Better and worse—i.e., normativity is constitutive of Cosmos, manifesting as the ubiquity of appetition, aka (desire and need).”Let’s talk about that. That’s a good start. You go, David!One way to think about this definition—and this appears a little bit in, as he always does, David writes like one to 115 which, of course, we’ll condense. But he wrote us this kind of sprawling thing. He’s like that.But his first one is: “Value is the quality of irreducible rightness that exists for its own sake.”Zak: Yeah.Marc: This is very related to this particular definition, that there’s a sense of rightness.Now, rightness is not only goodness. And it’s not only truth; it’s also beauty.Zak: Yes.Marc: There’s a rightness in beauty. This is a very beautiful word.I love this sentence, “Value is the quality of irreducible rightness that exists for its own sake.”Meaning, it’s not instrumental. It’s for its own sake.Now, David has added here on the definition of value—”Better or worse, i.e., normativity.”That’s the sense of irreducible rightness. It’s for its own sake. It’s non-instrumental. It’s not a social construct.But David added something: “manifesting as the ubiquity of appetition, desire, and need.” That’s adding something to it. That’s adding that there’s a desire and a need that ought to be fulfilled.So, last sentence, then, to you, man. I want to put these two together. So his second play is, “Value is the aspirational ought that is backed by the universe.”Or, last one, “Value is an intrinsic ought which allures reality towards its next level of fulfillment, of depth, and of wholeness.”Zak: Yeah.Marc: David’s in play. He’s clarifying a little bit. Any and all thoughts, comments, alternative speeches, or antisemitic remarks?Zak: Just that sense of that when in the universe something comes from nothing, that it’s a “yes”. Not from a kind of evil, as the kind of Manichaean-like Gnostic view would be. But in fact, that this is joyous, correct—like both do this, and it’s beautiful and it’s appropriate.Marc: It’s good and it’s true.Zak: Exactly. It’s good and it’s true.So that sense of the—each basic move the universe makes in evolution is somehow right. And that the Field of Value lays down this potential for that to be.Otherwise, every movement of the universe would be arbitrary.Every movement of the universe, you would say, “Well, is that a right or a wrong thing for the universe to do?” And you’d be like, “Well, that’s a stupid question.”But if the Field of Value is an involutionary given, and there’s an intrinsic sense of appropriateness, inappropriateness, goodness, badness, incorrectness, correctness, beautiful, not beautiful, that in every move the universe makes, you can ask the question of its rightness.One way to think about that in a very interesting way is just to think about selection, which is just what survives—what continues to exist in the universe is what the universe wants to be here.That means that it’s saying this is the right thing, this is the wrong thing. The wrong thing doesn’t continue to exist. And as you get into a more complex notion of selection, you get into what Ken used to call all-quadrant selection, which means that it’s not just functional fit of causal interface that allows a thing to exist.It is all dimensions, which means the fulfillment of clarified desire meeting with the existence of intrinsic value couples, and you get being—intrinsic more being and more intrinsic being.Marc: That’s what we mean when we call it “more God to come.”Zak: Exactly, but that as the universe clarifies its desire, there is something for it to attain and to achieve. With that clarified desire is the notion of—so every time more and truer desire emerges, there is the possibility for its satisfaction.This is the dynamic of the evolution of the universe, in this sense, it is the calling for more and the receiving of more, the asking for the thing to be correct, and then the correcting. The making right.We Can Answer “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” Anthro-OntologicallyMarc: Yes, it’s beautiful. And we’re pointing towards Value.In other words, it’s what we mean when the lineage says, “Hakadosh Baruch Hu Mit a- vheh, God lusts, la’asot Dirato, to make His dwelling place Ba-tachtonim, in the manifest world.”It’s the sense of—the way I like to say it is, Infinity is desiring finitude.There’s this “desire is core.”And when Wittgenstein asks or Fichte and Schelling ask, or recently, in the 25–34 years ago, John Leslie wrote some really nice stuff on that, but everyone’s asked this question: why is there something rather than nothing?We can anthro-ontologically say it’s more than something’s going on.Zak: Yeah.Marc: Yes, something’s going on, and it’s not random. Something’s going on. It’s not like, as Ken beautifully wrote who, I think, David also knows, he mentioned. It’s not “oops, something’s going on.”It’s a great and wonderful way to phrase it. Ken told me, he said it was his favorite page.Zak: I mean that page is great. And people’s reaction to that phrasing and kind of parsing of issues is interesting because it backs you into a corner. Like, are you willing to think it’s all arbitrary?Marc: Which is the claim that’s being made.And so, it’s a good summation of the master of cuts. You and I talked about, like, a decade ago. I actually remember talking about it—a beautiful conversation where the master of cuts says that the religionist has to explain suffering; the atheist has to explain everything else.Zak: Yes.Marc: That’s the “oops,” moment. But actually, we can go beyond that moment.We can’t occlude the mystery, but there’s another step into knowing that we can go, and we can actually access that step, anthro-ontologically—anthro: human being; ontologically: realness lives there, the mysteries are within us—which is the desire for intimacy.It’s why we’ve called in CosmoErotic Humanism, the name of God, as it were the Infinite Intimate. So, infinity desires finitude.Now, we can’t plumb the nature of that desire.Desire is mysterious in human beings, and it’s totally mysterious in the Infinite Intimate, but we can have an experience of being welcome in the universe.Infinity desires finitude.Why is there something rather than nothing?Because infinity desires finitude.It changes your whole experience of being in reality. Meaning, I’m valued.In other words, reality is the disclosure of Value, and this begins to bring us towards this other understanding of Value, which is: desire discloses Value, or, clarified desire discloses Value.So the desire of the Infinite discloses or generates Value in all…Zak: In all of reality.Exactly.Get the book:In 2024 David J. Temple published a book called: “First Principles and First Values: 42 propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis and the World to Come”. It’s the go-to place to dive deep into many of the themes being explored in this podcast.In forty-two propositions, David takes on the challenge of articulating a new grammar of value—a core set of frameworks that provide a new source code for the future of planetary culture. Rooted in eternal, yet evolving First Principles and First Values, this grammar is broad enough to provide a context for our diversity and deep enough to address our most pressing existential risks.Join us in articulating a new, shared vision that can act as a bridge to enable global coherence and coordination.The Involutionary Given of Value Is a Script of DesireZak: So, one way of saying it like that is the involutionary given.And this is weird because we get into free will versus determinism, or something like Providence versus randomness, or something, but that the involutionary pre-given of Value would actually be a script of desire.That actually there’s something that boots, that is something like a script of desire is downloaded as the evolutionary pre-given.This is me spitballing, but the idea that people like Wolfram have had that there’s something like a core generator function, or algorithm from which all the others emerge, that creates the whole thing.The idea that here we have a script of all scripts of desire, which is this crystal Field of Value thing. That’s the involutionary pre-given.And then you get all of these specific scripts—each tree, each subspecies, each unique human. All of these scripts within scripts within scripts, but the possibility of boots, and so it’s not just that the value encodes; it’s that a story is about to be told or something.Marc: Yeah. So, let’s go slow. First, I just want to introduce this term, because David just texted it to us, like, a few weeks back, which is “script of desire.” I want to give it space.Zak: I don’t know that I’ve heard David. I haven’t heard David’s formal definition, actually.Marc: I think he told me he shared it with you but you guys haven’t really talked about it. I get that.So, the way I understand it in discussion is, “scripts of desire” means that at the very core of reality, reality is Eros. Eros is ErosValue and ErosDesire. They’re not splittable, which is the essential Eros of reality, essential desire of reality, which itself that desire of reality is for Value.Life, for example, is a value. And so reality will move towards life.But actually, at every level of reality, reality will move towards the next level of depth. And each new level of depth generates new value.So, in essence, a “script of desire,” is a script of value. That’s what it is. A script of desire is actually a script of value. There’s no difference between them because desire discloses value.But let’s just play with text for a second.There’s a Mishnah, a kind of second-century text. In a tractate called the tractate Yadayim, the Tractate of Hands, which says something like, or refers to something like this idea. In the name of Akiva, it implies this idea, Ilmalei nit’nah Torah, if the Torah would not have been given, we could have learned all wisdom or all value from the Song of Solomon, from the Song of Songs.It’s very beautiful. So, the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, is an erotic set of love notes.It’s a story of desire. The entire text is about desire. It’s not even about love in an emotive sense; it’s actually desire.In other words, the Song of Songs is a script of desire. So what it’s saying is that all scripts —and I just realized this reading, literally, in the last four or five days. It’s beautiful. That all scripts of desire are scripts of value.In the middle of the night, I woke up just ecstatic, Oh, that’s what it’s saying.And then here’s another text. Second text, which also I didn’t realize that that’s what it meant.And I’ve seen this text for 40, 50 years—50 years at least. Probably the first time I saw this text was probably 45 to 50 years ago. I’m 93, so it was way back.Where the Zohar says, “Istakkal b’orayta, The Infinite looked in, gazed in or right to the Torah, u’vara alma, and created the world.” So the Torah is text.Now, as Nachmanides points out in the 13th century, is kind of the greatest kind of interior scientist of the 13th century. And he points out, all of the Torah is really the names of God.Now, the name of God, the four-letter name of God, is the Yud-hey-Vav-hey.So if you would spell it, it would be the Yud enters the hey, as in “Hallelujah.” As in Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The Yud enters the hey, which is the line entering the circle. And then the Yud, which is a tiny letter, is then pulled down and becomes the Vav, which is the third letter. And then the Vav enters the hey. So the hey is always the circle, which is what the letter looks like in Hebrew. י (yud/Y) ה (hey/H) ו (vav/W) ה (hey/H) יהוהThe Yud and the Vav are kind of phallic, and the idea is that the name of God is called, in the Zohar, the first two letters are called zivuga mitm’da, constant erotic union. And the next two letters are zivuga d’it’ar mitata, Erotic union that is aroused—aroused by what? By human beings. Meaning the name of God is the Field of Desire.Zak: Right.Marc: So if the Torah is the names of God, which I mean the Torah is an expression of the field of desire. So the Torah is value, which is disclosing the field of desire. How beautiful, right?Zak: Yeah.Marc: So all of a sudden, these texts reclarify. Just in the last days, it’s like, “of course.”Zak: Well, and you can see how it is that—you’re the one who said it—we killed every god except for Aphrodite.The idea that the distillation of the culture past the common-sense sacred axioms ends up being love songs.It ends up being actually quite crude love songs these days, which is that it’s not the, like, you know, what’s the one? The most famous one that they played in Ghost? I can’t remember. Anyway, so the deep old love songs from the ‘50s and stuff like that.But now we have these other ones, where there’s nothing left, in terms of the sacred, which is that the Torah is no longer being written, where do we look?We have to find it in something. And in some sense, the Song of Solomon is a kind of a crass love song, in a way, if you take it—Marc: Yeah. Absolutely! It’s why scholars try and explore— there’s a whole school of scholars that says, “It’s just a tavern song.”Zak: A tavern song. Right. Exactly.Marc: But the point is a tavern song is where it all is...Zak: Right. That’s what I’m saying.Marc: Exactly. Beautiful.Story Is Equally Primordial with Desire and All Stories Are Scripts of DesireZak: So there’s something unavoidable about the kind of captivation of the scripts of desire that play through the culture. So this is back in the primacy of Story.So is it that Story is the superordinate class, or is it that all stories are, in a sense, scripts of desire?Given the ontology and the definition of story, it seems like all stories are in some sense scripts of desire.Marc: Let’s dive into this for a second.Because, again, I know that David has influenced a little bit, and we apologize for this with some degree of sincerity and some degree of insincerity.We apologize for not taking sufficient care of our listeners, which we don’t, we’re just kind of chatting, and we’re delighted and honored that people eavesdrop a little bit. But here I’m going to just take care of the listener a little bit.So what you’re referring to, of course, is this piece of work that David’s done, which is on the Ontology of Story.What we’re actually saying is—which is a very big idea—I’ve been deploying that idea a lot this year in One Mountain. And actually, we decided to do a pastiche on this idea of the ontology of story. Pastiche is your word, you brought into my consciousness. It’s a great word. An excuse for unfinished work, a pastiche.Zak: Don’t tell the post-modernists that. They think that this is how you do art.Marc: But this pastiche on story, the ontology of story, what we’re saying is that story has these six core elements, and the elements are:1) There’s a causal relationship.In other words, it’s not merely constant conjunction, but there’s a necessary connection.2) There’s a plotline driving the story.3) The plotline is animated by desire.4) Desire is always desire for value.5) There’s often crisis which generates new value or new structures.6) There’s some dimension of animated proto-freedom in the story.And what we’ve shown is with David, is that that definition of story goes all the way down.Zak: All the way down.Marc: And all the way up.Zak: Yeah. And it’s equally primordial with desire, so back to my point that it is, in a sense, saying that story—all stories are scripts of desire.In insofar as your story is an arbitrary set of events, it’s not a story. That’s interesting.Marc: Let’s stay with it. It’s beautiful, right?In other words, what we begin to realize is, and this is where it’s exciting. This is where I’ve been so excited about this in the last year, that you realize the tightness of the word cluster.I’ve been thinking about this for, literally, last year, like, day and night. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.It’s like, oh, there’s really, I don’t mean in terms of root, or in terms of formal meaning, but in terms of phenomenology, phenomenologically, there’s no distinction between the word “story” and “desire.”They’re the same word.In other words, it’s actually story and desire, and then Story, Desire, and Value are all epiphenomenologically primordial in Cosmos all the way down, all the way up.It’s ecstatic to realize that, because:* desire is always desire for, it’s the desire for Value.It’s for something.It’s driving action.It’s a process of becoming, aka, it’s a story.And then story always has desire—you and I are never interested in talking about—we always say to each other, we’re never telling a new story. And then we want a new Story of Value.Zak: Right.Marc: It’s very beautiful. It’s very tight. And maybe last sentence. This is f*****g crazy.Yuval Harari Discovered a Thread: Rights Emerge from Value, but His Claim on Stories Is Performatively Contradicted in His BehaviorMarc: Take something like our friend, who gets demonized on the web. I’m sure he’s a wonderfully nice human being. I’m sure. Yuval Harari.Yuval’s big deal that he loves to say for the last seven, eight years, and he’s kind of reflecting the post-modern consciousness. He’s an uncontaminated reflector of that consciousness. He’s not a philosopher, but he reflects it.He always says, “Human rights are just a made-up story,” and you would say, like, you would think, like, “Huh? Do you really want to be saying that?”He is enjoying it because he’s not thinking about it as an educator. He’s thinking about it as a kind of provocateur, doing podcasts.But actually, do you really want to be saying that?So bracket that question, what our role is when we say things like that—but what he’s actually saying is, paradoxically, he’s discovered a thread that we’re just now articulating in that new book on attention that David just drafted, which is that actually rights emerge from Value.Zak: Yeah.Marc: In other words, that desire times need generates value, which then discloses rights and responsibilities.That’s our thread that we’ve been working on the last three, four months.Now, if you remove Value, there’s no rights.Of course, there’s none, because where would they f*****g come from?Go, please. Yeah, it’s exciting.Zak: Well, it ends up being interesting etymologically and semantically in terms of wordplay, because you get, as we started with this notion that there’s an involutionary pre-given of the rightness of the universe, which is the condition for the possibility of there being rights.Marc: Yes.Zak: And then, you also have the term “rite”, which is like a ritual, which is one way to think about a rite—the eye of value being opened through ritual practice to reveal the appropriateness of the world.Marc: And it’s particular rituals. Rituals of a particular face—I’m sorry, finish it, I apologize.Zak: I’m just making like:* Rite in the normative sense.* Rite in the ritual sense, and then* Rite in the legal sense.Are all related in terms of primacy of Field of Value.And again—story, like, if you can’t tell a story about why a right is worth protecting, if the answer is, “Who cares?” then you’re done. So again, story is also necessary.Marc: Story is utterly necessary.When Harari says, our friend, “Stories are actually human creations. They’re not intrinsic to the cosmos. They’re fabricated, social constructs which are never doing anything other than lying.” That’s his basic position. Stories are all fictions. They’re never saying anything true.And Yuval, brother, with total affection, my friend, and be delighted to talk to you about it. But we got to get a little real here.What he does is he sets up a straw man, and he says, “Well, money’s a story, and corporations are a story,” which are both true. There’s some deep truth in that. And, you know, “the Sunnis  are telling one story and they’re killing the Shiites who are telling another story, fundamentalist Protestants are killing the fundamentalist Catholics who are telling a story.” Right?So he goes through caricatured versions of story, meaning story in its shadow form, and concludes, “Oh, stories are just made up.”But it would actually be a much more powerful conclusion to say, Oh, there’s a reason why stories cohere.Stories generate coherence because stories participate in the intrinsic coherence of the Cosmos itself. Number one.And number two. The reason people don’t feel an experience of being at home in the world without participating in a story is because stories are the structure of reality.So the correct educational, philosophical, existential, moral, mystical, and psychological move—all of them—is not to abolish story as a reality, but to clarify story and to create a shared Story of Value as a context for diverse stories.Zak: Yeah.And you can’t say a story is incorrect without standing on the ground of some story that is correct.So the deeper issue here is the performative contradiction in a philosophical sense which is: which story is it that claims all stories are incorrect? Is that story correct?And so the inability to say anything without that. And then what you want to be able to do is say: some stories are made up and some stories are not. You have to be able to say that.There are some stories about abstract things, like concepts like human rights, for example, where it’s harder.But it seems to be very clear if I was dealing with someone like Yuval Harari and a child, and the child took something they weren’t supposed to take, and the child said to Yuval, that they did not take it, and Yuval knew that they took it, that Yuval had said, he’d say, “You’re lying.”And what that means is that there’s a story that is actually true about what happened with regard to that thing. So if you lose the ability to do that, then you cannot raise children, then you cannot run a culture.Yuval is at the podium saying things which he performatively contradicts in his behavior.It’s true that abstract stories are harder, but the principle holds that there are clearly stories. For example, the stories we tell about two plus two being four, where does Yuval Harari land with that?Or, what about the story, like, “Hey, I’m telling a story that there are errors in your book in terms of copy editing.” Would he be like, “No, that’s just some other story.” No, he’d be like, “Fix the book.”So it’s just like, either become a philosopher or don’t say philosophical things will be my point to Harari here, because it’s an easy trap to fall into if you’re a sophomore in college trying to be a philosophical relativist.But if you’re talking to the whole world, and they’re hanging on your every word, and you don’t even realize you can’t stand on your own two feet because you’re committing performative contradictions, you’re being irresponsible.Marc: My trouble with Yuval is the chilling effect that he’s having actually, in reality, which is starkly beyond irresponsible. It’s unloving in a kind of fundamental way.Because when you say—I’ll give you an example, so our friend Yuval, and again, with all affection and sweetness—the reason I’m saying that is because there’s all these memes on the web demonizing Yuval, so f**k those. We’re not coming from that at all. This is talking about just a direct—which I’m sure you know our friend would appreciate.For example, there’s an entire chapter in his book Homo Deus saying freedom is not real. There’s no choice; choice doesn’t exist. He kind of adopts that position.Then the Ukraine War starts. And then he kind of writes this thing in The Guardian, “Well, we can handle this because human beings can choose, because we have choice.”So, are you joking with us?In other words, obviously, you’re taking a position on choice in a normative way, and you’re taking a position on the ultimate, at this moment, superiority of the liberal order. And then at the same time you undermine it.So that’s complex. It’s important to be a jester at the king’s banquet. It’s important to challenge dogmatic certainties, but it’s also important to stand in the rightness of, for example, human rights.Zak: I agree. Cool.Marc: Good start. Yay.Zak: Maybe David will show up next time. We keep showing up and he just is not here.Marc: I know. I know. Yeah, it was good to talk to you, man.Mentioned Sources:* Gafni, Marc & Kincaid, Kristina, A Return to Eros: The Radical Experience of Being Fully Alive, BenBella Books, 2017* Gafni, Marc, The Mystery of Love, Atria Books, 2004* Temple, J. David, First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, World Philosophy and Religion Press, 2024Mentioned People:* Ken Wilber (1949-)* Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)* Johann Fichte (1762-1814)* Friedrich von Schelling (1775-1854)* Stephen Wolfram (1959-)* Nachmanides (1194-1270)* Yuval Noah Harari (1976-)Go Deeper:If you’re enjoying these deep dive conversations with Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein, then we have an epic opportunity for you to deepen your learning process and bring these teachings into your daily life!Who We Must Become is an evolutionary community rising in response to the great calling of this moment of meta-crisis. We bring together daily practice, weekly study sessions with Dr. Marc Gafni, exclusive courses and more.Join us in this movement and transformation into being and becoming Homo Amor. 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