Walkie-Talkie #9 'Yes! The Word Exists! (And Something About Willam James)'

Dear, friends,

First of all, I would like to wish you and your loved ones a wonderful new year, filled with love, friendship, health, energy, hope, and all the good things in life!

It is not always easy to maintain a positive attitude with everything we see happening in the world at the moment, and sometimes it even seems easy to lose all hope that things will ever be okay with this world. The first week of the new year did not seem to promise much good in that regard.

But we must not forget that there are many processes underway, often below the radar of the media, that suggest a better world does indeed await us. Many things may get much worse before they get better, but I remain optimistic about the long term.

One of the things that gives me hope are the signs of a new worldview that is emerging and that will significantly change our understanding of ourselves and the world.

That is one of the reasons why the 19th-century American philosopher and psychologist William James has fascinated me for some time: he developed a vision of humanity, consciousness, and the universe that differs greatly from the nihilistic worldview that dominates the secularized Western world today.

William James is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers and psychologists of the 19th century, and he made a number of statements that are very relevant to everything I would like to talk to you about in the coming time.

I was therefore really surprised when I discovered that he of all people was the first person in the English-speaking world to ever use the word ‘to diagrammatize’, a word that just popped into my head during Walkie-Talkie #7, and of which I didn't know if it really exists.

I saw this as a small synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence, and one that made me kind of happy.

In this first Walkie-Talkie of the new year, I talk about why I find William James an important and fascinating thinker, and why I find what he said so relevant to what I want to do. And that is mainly because he was a proponent of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘filter theory’. This filter theory is a very special theory about human consciousness and the world.

Physicist Bernard Carr also talked about this filter theory in the Musing ‘A wonderful afternoon with a remarkable scientist, gentleman, and visionary’.

I also want to talk some more about the phenomenon of synchronicity, but I'll save that for next time.

Thank you for joining me on this first walk of the year, and see you next time!

All the best to you,

Filip

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