Today we're joined by Dr. Brook Ziporyn, a scholar of Classical Chinese from the University of Chicago, and translator of Zhuangzi and the Daodejing. He makes the case that classical Chinese rescues us from the hard problem of consciousness where meaning comes from context and relation instead of isolation. Identity is carved out of an undivided whole, and what's cut away is devalued in the same stroke. This approach also feeds into a critique of the Western epistemological approach to the cosmos where a law that can't be wrong fuels a hidden patchwork program to protect itself. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysci OUR BOOK, PARADOX LOST: https://demystifysci.com/paradoxlost HOMEBREW MUSIC : Vinyl: https://demystifysci-shop.fourthwall.com/products/vinyl-lp-secretary-of-nature-everything-is-so-good-here Streaming: https://secretaryofnature.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-so-good-here PARADIGM DRIFT https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-show 00:00 Go! Why Does Studying Something Require Removing It First? 00:05:14 What Makes a Text Impossible to Translate the Same Way Twice? 00:13:01 How Did an Atheist Text Acquire Gods? 00:21:16 What Happens to a Word With No Tense and No Plural? 00:30:08 Which Thoughts Are Uphill and Which Are Downhill? 00:39:08 Why Do Mayan and Classical Chinese Line Up? 00:47:00 When Is Ambiguity the Point Instead of the Failure? 00:56:24 What Grows in a Tradition That Never Wrote Down Its Rules? 01:03:20 What Do You Invent When the Law Cannot Be Wrong? 01:07:05 Where Exactly Does the Inside Stop? 01:17:39 Why Does the West Need Things to Be For Something? 01:26:24 Can You Make Something Beautiful If You Know How It Ends? 01:33:28 Who Designed the Sky? 01:42:32 What Is Four Billion Years of Something Not Stopping? 01:53:33 Do Equations Explain Anything or Just Describe It? 02:02:32 What Did Atomism Have to Invent Nothing For? 02:08:57 What Is Understanding Good For If It Is Good For Nothing? #Philosophy #ChinesePhilosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #Linguistics #Metaphysics #Zhuangzi #PhilosophyOfLanguage MERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci-shop.fourthwall.com/ AMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98 DONATE: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysci RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss MAILING LIST: https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S SOCIAL: - Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DemystifySci - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DemystifySci/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemystifySci MUSIC: -Shilo Delay: https://g.co/kgs/oty671