2016 Lecture 01 Maps of Meaning: Introduction and Overview
So, welcome to Maps of Meaning. So the first question I guess I might have is, what, why are you here? Anybody got an interesting reason?
[Student answers: Uh, I want to be able to manipulate reality to my best interests.]
That's a good plan.
[Student answers: Yeah.]
Except for the manipulate part. [Laughter]
[Student answers: Maybe my wording is off?]
It's okay.
It's better to work with reality, generally, than to manipulate it cause it tends to hit back. Anyone else? Yeah.
[Student answers: Uhh, my friend took this class a couple years ago and he kind of threatened me to take it.]
Oh yeah.
[Student answers: Cause apparently he said that the course actually changes like...]
For the, for the better?
[Student answers: Yeah.] [Students' laughter]
That's good.
[Student answers: You made him write a short story or something, and made him want to become an author. Now he's a published author.]
Really?
[Student: Yeah]
Is he any good?
[Student answers: I never read his book actually.] [Students' laughter]
Ooh. Some friend you are. No wonder he threatens you. Yeah.
[Student answers: I audited this course six years ago, and the course changed the way I see the world. So I want to see after six years what happens now.]
You want to see if it'll change back? [Students' laughter] Well that's good. So why did you decide, why, uh, why after all this time did you decide to come back?
[Student answers: Well I thought about the things you discussed in the class over those six years, but now, um, it's been awhile and I want to refresh myself and see, you know, with the new experience I've had, and the new things I've learned, how and what I can take from it now.]
Hmm, hmm. Well that's very, um, dedicated and hopefully useful.
[Student answers: My friend said that he had a spiritual awakening from taking this course.]
God, I hope I didn't see that. He did, eh?
[Student: Yeah]
Did he give you any, any, like, any, description or? Was it associated with an epileptic seizure? [Students' laughter]
[Student: It was associated with a lot of like, visions]
Oh really, eh? Oh that's interesting. Yeah, that can get out of hand, that sort of thing, you know. No, that's, that's interesting. I mean, one of the things that I experienced when I started to learn some of the things that I'm going to talk to you guys about is a very radical increase in the intensity and clarity of my dreams. It wasn't pleasant, by the way. But, it was useful. Most useful things aren't that pleasant. So you're in for some of the same punishment, I guess that's the plan, is it?
[Student answers]
Alright, alright, anybody else?
[Student answers: I sort of have an independent interest in Existential Psychology. Nietzsche, Jung, etc. This seemed like a good place to discuss it, and I took your previous class, personality.]
Personality?
[Student answers: I liked it a lot.]
When did you take that?
[Student answers: Couple years ago.]
Yeah? Yeah, well it's a good preparation for this class. Now, is there anybody here who doesn't have any idea what this class is about, and more or less showed up because the time is right or anything like that? So you don't really have any idea what you're in for?
[Student answers]
Alright, well I'm gonna jump right into it because why not? So I'm gonna talk to you for about two hours, and then you can have a break, and then I'm gonna tell you what you have to do in the class. But, by that time you'll know if you wanna take the class because you'll know whether or not you were interested in what I told you about. So I'm going to video the class - I always do that. So the videos will be online, ones from previous years are online as well. So hopefully that'll be a useful resource. It shouldn't take me as much setup time the next time as it did me today. I'm still getting used to this equipment. So, I wanna tell you why I'm telling you the things that I'm going to tell you. When I was approximately the same age that you people are, probably a little bit older as I imagine you guys are a...