Two Weeks To Fluidity Forum!
There’s quite a bit of programming to share with you in this newsletter, and after that there’s information about meals!
Sessions So Far
As always, the sessions are subject to change. Soon we’ll also publish their times and locations in our AirBnB (the same one as last year) and in the academic-style auditorium (which we rented to replace The Congregation where we had last year’s sessions). These are listed by last name of the presenter.
Intro To Fluidity Forum
by Matt Arnold
A survey of ideas that combined to inform the design of Fluidity Forum’s norms, including but not limited to:
“Vaster Than Ideology” by David Chapman.
“Are Woo Non-Responders Defective?” by Scott Alexander.
“Against ‘Spirituality’: A Manifesto” by Tyler Alterman.
We welcome all three vibes listed on our vibes page. We’ll explore how such an event can remain multi-perspectival, but also have enough in common to be interested in each other’s sessions.
Intentional Relating Games
by Matt Arnold
A simplified intro to Authentic Relating Games, which is better named Intentional Relating. We’ll pair off for Curiosity and Listening games, and split into twos or threes for Noticing. To see the 5 agreements, here’s the instruction handout our local group uses.
Intentional Relating Circle
by Matt Arnold
A modified version of what’s known as Circling. We sit in a circle and commit to do only four things: (1) expose a curiosity or assumption, (2) notice something arising in the here-and-now, (3) ask if we can say what’s on our mind for a minute and have someone repeat it back, or (3) let a silence linger until one of the first three happens. To see the 5 agreements, here’s the instruction handout our local group uses.
Coffee Ritual
by Matt Arnold
A Monty Python-esque high church parody ritual. The Pope of Coffee shall blesspresso The Holy Of Holies: the most theatrical brewing method ever devised. The acolytes will serve the Holy Liquid unto the congregation, who shall raise the sacrament to the east, and in unison, recite the litany “God, I needed that!” A blend of cafe’ths such as Press-byterian, Buzzentine, Sipiscopal, and even Atheismericano.
How To Not Start A Cult
by Matt Arnold
It all started with good intentions. A group had heightened emotional and psychological experiences, and years later, some of the participants wrote regretful blog posts saying they gained a sense of purpose but lost their sense of self; their sense of proportion; and their sense. We’ve heard the story many times. Mostly what we hear is advice about how to prevent joining one, but what about how to prevent starting one? Sometimes a group takes hold of each other negatively without anyone having ever planned for that. Can it be better designed from the outset? I’ll suggest practical ways to short-circuit several kinds of self-reinforcing spirals of group norms, and share perspectives from multiple sources, plus my own experiences.
“As It’s Told” vs. “As It Is”: Field Research in Abstraction and in Practice
by Feast of Assumption
A farmer and researcher connects the popular abstractions of farming and research with the practical applications of farming and research.
Failure Modes of Secular Religions - Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
by Eneasz Brodski
There’ve been many attempts to start secular “religions” since atheism became publicly acceptable in the late 90s, and none have truly taken root. Based on his early explorations and conversations with those active in these attempts, Eneasz presents some reasons why this is the case, how the closest alternatives currently available work, and speculates on what’s to be done. Audience input is welcomed!
Goth 101 Workshop
Eneasz Brodski (30 minutes)
Addressing why to seek out goth dance events, and how to attend/vibe/dance at one.
Game: Trouble in Terrorist Town
by Josh Brule
Trouble in Terrorist Town is a social deduction game with an informed minority (“traitors”) and an uninformed majority (“innocent”). The traitors’ goal is to eliminate everyone who is not a traitor. The innocents’ goal is to prevent themselves from being killed. However, the innocents do not know who is a traitor and who is innocent.
Basically, it’s Mafia, with Nerf guns.
In addition to the core game, we will experiment with adding additional roles, to see how this affects gameplay and the players’ actions.
I’ll provide a number of Nerf guns, but please feel free to bring your own Nerf guns and/or swords.
Iyengar Yoga Class
by Lauren Elbaum
How to move your body in healthy ways that feel good. Iyengar yoga focuses on balance, building strength, and flexibility. Poses are demonstrated first and then emulated with coaching. All body types and abilities are welcome.
Lauren is not a certified Iyengar teacher, but has been doing Iyengar-style yoga for 11 years.
Evolution, Chesterton’s Fence and Goodhart’s Law
by Blake Elias
This interactive discussion group will explore techno-optimism, techno-pessimism, and techno-realism, and examine evolutionary maps and Chesterton’s Fence as frameworks for analyzing the impact of technology on human evolution.
Sugar and Salt and Everything, Gestalt!
by Jane Flowers
You just call on umami,
When you’re tasting bland!
We all need! U-ma-mi,
To ta-a-aste strong!
Thank you, Dill Withers, for that lovely segue, and welcome, all you Fluidity Forum foodies! All throughout the weekend, we’ll be sampling age-old Aryeuvedic concoctions, irresistibly Instagrammable confections (BYO zeitgeisty tin coupé glass), and everything in-between!
Daily menus to be hastily scrawled on a dainty lil’ chalkboard, like we’re some insufferable Napa Valley farm-to-table establishment with a pitiful lone Michelin Star. We might also hold a special family-style ceremonial meal we’ll all cook together one evening, so stay tuned!
March (Literal) Madness: Healing Modalities Edition!
by Jane Flowers
Do you roll your eyes whenever someone mentions EMDR? Are you an acupuncturist, keen on bursting Western medicine’s legibility bubble? Is hypnotherapy your hobby-horse? Is ketamine your hobby-horse tranquilizer?
Well, then, throw on your Freudian Slippers, ease yourself in to your well-worn armchair, and come one, come all, to what may well be a not-inconsequential mental health showdown, given TPoT’s weirdly portentous role in these matters.
Starting off with a full tournament bracket of modalities and methods, we’ll live-vote on each matchup, allowing time prior to each matchup to debate, or sing the praises of, or relate horror stories involving, each of the modalities in question.
Soon enough, we’ll have slowly whittled our way down to the ONLY thing that TOTALLY WORKS for EVERYONE, for ALL OF TIME. Yay, blanket statements! Also if enough people bring their emotional support animals, we can host a cage match.
Exploring Boundaries With West Coast Swing Dance
Harry Gao
Healthy boundary pushing and boundary holding—in partner dance, flirting, or social interactions in general—is all about the dynamic between leader and follower. But good leading isn’t only being confident and good following isn’t only being receptive! In this short one-on-one lesson, I’ll demonstrate the importance of leading with a follower’s receptiveness and following with a leader’s intentionality. This is key to creating a collaborative back-and-forth dynamic that’s fun for both parties! As someone who understands the fluidity of both roles, I’m happy to teach leaders and followers.
This is a beginner West Coast swing dance lesson that focuses on the connection between leader and follower and not as much about specific dance footwork; in other words, you don’t have to have any experience or desire to dance to gain something from this!
Art on the Chaos Continua
Phil Goetz
When we organize art along dimensions corresponding to the 3 meanings of the Greek word xaos, we find that
complexity and beauty are maximized in the center;
any system capable of producing life generates artifacts in the center;
empirically, the center contains naturalistic, representational art; and
historically, such art correlates with peace, while symbolic art correlates with war.
Therefore, naturalistic art is the most complex, beautiful, peaceful, and lifelike.
Historically, the public prefers representational art to be from the center, while elites, priests, and rulers want it to come from one of the corners, where simplified, symbolic artistic styles exist, which are useful for propaganda and mind control.
The most-common cycle of artistic development is
formal art develops,
formal art is gradually elaborated into naturalistic art,
civilizational elites replace naturalistic art with symbolic art,
civilization collapses, and culture begins again with formal art.
The Tantra of Freestyling
by Duncan Horst
Duncan Horst will be departing from his one man shows and improvisatory festival circuit musicals to deliver an exposition and demonstration of freestyle improvisation through the lens of Classical Tantra. The two are more closely linked than a casual scholar would imagine! He will combine theory and practice, including performance, metaphysics, and Eastern and Western philosophies to create art, alchemy, and philosophy to fuse them into a functional theory of consciousness which doubles as a living song, never before heard and never performed in the same way twice. This is the metaphorical overstuffed burrito of the fluid mode of consciousness in all her awesome power and terrible glory! A true experience.
Linguistically Mediated Causal Attribution Errors
by Gricemic Index
This presentation discusses some recent work on the linguistics of “causal attribution errors”: a listener’s tendency to infer a causal relationship from a statement that conveys only a correlation. In a linguistically-mediated causal attribution error, a listener infers a causal relationship from a statement which literally conveys only a correlation (e.g. upon hearing “Opera is associated with better health”, a listener might erroneously infer that attending the opera causes better health).
Linguistically-mediated CAEs are relatively common, despite a general awareness of the error and the perceived common knowledge that “correlation does not imply causation”. This talk identifies the contextual conditions and linguistic properties of statements where CAEs are most or least likely to arise, motivated under a theory of listeners as rational agents.
Personal Space Awareness
by Jane Pierce
Join a light hearted session to discover your innate ability to sense other people’s personal space and develop intentional control over your own. Explore your kinetic responses and help them become conscious knowledge.
Jane Pierce is an intuitive coach who has been teaching for over 30 years. Her career as an educator began in the Detroit Public Schools as a math and science teacher. Jane earned her Healer/Counselor certificate from the Church of Tzaddi in 1994 and has facilitated practical spiritual development for thousands of adults in venues ranging from large conventions to intimate classrooms.
7 Provisional Truths: A Field Guide To Construct Awareness
by Brandon Watson
Take a tour of the embodied mind and its consequences for how knowledge is constructed. Our journey pulls epistemology—a domain of philosophy that concerns itself with theories of knowledge—out of the cloistered halls of academia and into the messy realities of daily life. We’ll show how our concernful involvement with the everyday world is the ground for all knowledge, illustrating why knowledge involves far more than “justified, true beliefs”, and how a more sophisticated epistemology opens us to more constructive ways of framing our beliefs about Reality.
Competing Dimensions to Optimize for in Literary Translation
by Alexis Wu
Some thoughts, musings, and perspectives that have been formulated through my decade-long personal experiences as a 1) producer of literary translation, 2) avid consumer of translated literature and scripted media, and 3) academically-trained linguist. I’ll be delving into some clashes of philosophy that I’ve been embroiled in as I navigated the translation and publishing industries, as well as making a case for some of my own stances, a lot of which can, I would in fact argue, be tied to a certain dreaded but relevant word of our current age—alignment.
Owing to the nature of the examples I have on hand and the languages I work in, this presentation will inevitably be more friendly to those proficient in Mandarin Chinese than to others, but I will try my best to make it as universally friendly as I can by contextualizing as needed. Thanks for understanding.
Meals
You can see more about food on our Logistics page. This year, we’re trying to include options that can accommodate several food restrictions, including low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, lactose intolerant, and seed-oil-free. Jasmine Ren is planning and cooking lunches and dinners, which are listed here, and Jane Flowers is planning continental breakfast and refreshments.
Friday lunch:
Lentil soup (Lentils, celery, onion, carrot, kalamata olives, bay leaves, red wine vinegar, olive oil)
Salad (Salad greens, balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, Dijon mustard, Italian seasoning)
Bread
Friday dinner
Meatball pasta (Regular pasta, gluten free pasta, seed-oil free marinara sauce, beef meatballs, impossible meatballs)
Salad (Salad greens, balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, Dijon mustard, Italian seasoning)
Saturday lunch
Chana Masala (chickpeas, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, garlic, ginger, garam masala, cumin, olive oil
Rice (basmati rice)
Saturday dinner
Tacos (Beef topping, beef birria, vegetarian topping, extra firm tofu, chipotle peppers, onions, garlic, vegetable fajitas, bell peppers, red onions, paprika, black beans, guacamole, tortillas, cilantro, lime, tomato, red onion)
Sunday lunch
Baked Salmon (wild caught salmon, fresh parsley, fresh dill, garlic, lemon)
Store-bought potato salad
Salad (arugula, campari tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, basil, olive oil)
The next step is to reach out to those whose flights we don’t know yet, and wrap up our plans for picking up people from the airport.
I hope you’re as excited as I am!
-Matt A