An Evolving Web of Complex Relations
In love, are we confusing having with being?
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This is a guest post by Johannes Jaeger to accompany Episode #52, We Are Not Machines. All of the artwork is original and was created by Marcus Neustetter
L&P Friday Diary What is love?
[00:00:00] I'm thinking a lot about what mind and consciousness are and how it relates to the way we move through the world and the way we care for ourselves and for one another, and also the way we think of what a self is. What I'm really talking about is thinking of how many different things create us. These are all words for different ways that we find to connect with one another and with ourselves as multiplicities.
But this video, I wanted to talk about love because a lot of what I try to. Do here is talk about love. And that's not always easy because I do talk with a lot of scientists and philosophers and you know, very important people in different fields and we're not really used to bringing up the word love.
When I first started this, maybe I had a more simple idea of the word love or, or I just didn't think about it very much when I said the word, it seemed almost frivolous. Love, you know, because it's, [00:01:00] we use it so much. It infuses our body. It is our sensuality. It's, it's what we feel when we're really present and we don't feel judged and we're listening.
They're present and they're motivated and they're sensual. That is what I think we're pointing to with this word love, and it's so powerful. Oh wow. And it's so connective. It's so connecting. It's really touching all of us all the time. But how beautiful that to think about. All of you out there with all of your paths and your very unique individual positions.
And then here we are sharing this space for a little while together at different times, but somehow at the same time, we're all here trying to connect and care for each other and open portals for each other into that place of understanding that we're more than. One thing or multiplicities, it'll change.
It'll change you if you can. Just do it for three minutes. Sit, [00:02:00] care for yourself. Care for a tree care. And by care, I just mean be with it. Notice it. Listen to it. There's a whole way we can turn the kaleidoscope in different directions and see things differently. There's no one like you in the world, so you have something to give just by that.
You've seen the world differently. You've sensed the world differently. Open spaces for listening to each other and exploring those multiplicities of what we bring out in each other. Just noticing, listening, caring, and not in a sentimental or silly way, just trying to be present to the power that is actually possible, just through bringing our attention to.
I hope that wherever you are out there, you are doing well, and that something happens today that gives you a glimpse of love in whatever language that you [00:03:00] use, whatever that word means to you at its very best.
Andrea Hiott: Today is August 29th, 2025, and this is my diary. I'm gonna try to do one every week. a Love and Philosophy philosophy diary. So here we go. I'm Andrea. If you don't know me, I'm a philosopher. I also have degrees in neuroscience and I've worked in transportation and all kinds of things, but it doesn't really matter.
The point is, I'm thinking a lot about what mind and consciousness are and how it relates to the way we move through the world and the way we care for ourselves and for one another, and also the way we think of what a self is. I really feel like we're trying to find a different way to think about what a self is, what we are to understand ourselves ecologically, and I don't necessarily mean that in a any particular sense.
There's a lot of ways that word is used in philosophy and neuroscience and also just, you know, everyday life, wherever you may be in the world. [00:04:00] What I'm really talking about is thinking of how many different things create us. You know, whether it's the cells that live within us that keep us alive, that form into organs, that form into bodies.
All of this always changing, or whether it's the way we live together with the trees and our animals and our family and our friends, and. The people we work with, the people at the grocery store, the people we see walking down the street, all of these different, nested is the word I use a lot. Kind of like when you have those dolls where you can put one doll inside the other.
All these different nested things are happening. We have cells and we have all the way up to what we call ourself, and then we have these groups of people, and I'm really interested in. What love is and what mind and consciousness are when we try to think about it kaleidoscopic like that, when we try to think of it in that nested way, and I know that sounds pretty wild.
It's funny, [00:05:00] sometimes people ride and ask, are you mystical? Are you scientific? Are you, yeah. What are you? I, I don't know. And I won't try to say, but I study it scientifically, philosophically. Also, I feel there's a place for just being present to the world and asking these questions and seeing what comes and, and part of this whole idea is that we don't try to separate all of those.
That we take them all seriously. We understand they're different. We don't try to make one into the other. I don't wanna make philosophy into science or mysticism into science or whatever, spirituality. These are all words for different ways that we find to connect with one another and with ourselves as multiplicities.
But this video, I wanted to talk about love because a lot of what I try to do here is. Talk about love and that's not always easy because I do talk with a lot of scientists [00:06:00] and philosophers and you know, very important people in different fields and we're not really used to bringing up the word love and, um, o often I've also found when people hear love and philosophy, for example, they think, I mean.
Romantic love, and I don't necessarily, I, I love romance. I'm a very romantic person. Romance is wonderful. But when I am thinking about love here, I mean something else, actually, I don't even know if that word is, uh, makes the same sense to me that it did when I started out. I'm a, I'm actually, I'm on the 70th conversation here.
It started as research, but now it's changing into something else and a lot of people are helping. it's not just me And by the way, if anyone has a great idea and someone you really wanna talk to, let me know. If you know someone you really wanna talk to about love, doesn't matter if they're famous or not.
Uh, if they have something interesting to say about love, [00:07:00] consider this your project too, because. We're trying to understand how to care for each other, and we're also trying to understand what I was rambling on about at the beginning, how to not think through categories of either or how to think about it ourselves as constellations and nested lives and multiplicities, and that is a strange idea right now.
But I hope that in 10 years or so we are thinking a bit differently we're, we've learned how to think kaleidoscopic. So you're all welcome to bring things in, but back to this idea about love. When I first started this, maybe I had a more simple idea of the word love or, or I just didn't think about it very much When I said the word, it seemed almost frivolous, like love, you know, because it's, we use it so much.
Now when I say it, I, it's almost hard to say it because I realize how much it carries in it. And it's not about the word at all. It's more like, I think I said recently I was thinking of para [00:08:00] clus, this, uh, philosopher about you can never step in the same river twice. and love feels like every time I use it, it's a different.
River, or I'm stepping into a different river. It depends on the context, it depends on the day. It depends on who I've talked to, what I've felt, and it's the same in every conversation. Everyone has a different, they're bringing something different to what we're talking about when we use that word and what we're talking about when we use that word is not the word.
I think that's the important thing I've learned. Or that I've become aware of or started to notice is that there is something very powerful going on and it connects all of those multiplicities and those levels. It is those, it is the energy of all of that that I was talking about before. It's definitely not an either or thing, and it's definitely not a beginning and ends thing.
There's no beginning and end to it. To what we're talking about. I [00:09:00] don't mean to the word love 'cause we all use it differently, but altogether, the way that we're trying to think about this word love, whatever that word is pointing to, it doesn't have a beginning and an end. It infuses our body. It is our sensuality.
It's, it's what we feel when we're really present and we don't feel judged and we're listening. To ourselves can do it alone. And you're, you know, you can really listen to the world and yourself without judgment. That's the hard part. Without any voices telling you anything, just there no, no judgment, then you're feeling that love and it's really powerful.
So now when I use that word or think about that word, it's definitely not frivolous and I almost, uh, to catch myself. I can't say it about, I can't say it in a way that doesn't recognize its power as easily anymore, and I feel like that's a positive thing that's coming out of this, all of these conversations, because sitting with [00:10:00] people and.
Reading their work and really thinking about what motivates them at at heart. You know, not all this optics kind of stuff that we've gotten distracted a bit with, but what really moves them, what they really feel when they're not judging themselves. They're not judging anyone else. They're present and they're motivated and they're sensual.
That is what I think we're. Pointing to with this word love and it's so powerful. Oh wow. And it's so connective. It's so connecting. It's really touching all of us all the time. Maybe that's why it's so hard for us to feel it, because it is so strong and powerful and we have to be careful and it, it really is there all the time.
Whatever it is. We're using this word love to point to. Uh, we can use other words too. By the way, one thing that I've learned talking to so many people from so many different countries is. How many different words we use to point to this powerful energy connective force of multiplicity, non-judgmental listening, caring part [00:11:00] of us that is us.
The sensuality. We use the word love in English, but we use other words too, and sometimes we. Use just collections of sentences where we can't quite say it, but we fill it. And in a lot of other languages, there's a lot of. Translations of that word love, but also other completely different ways of saying it, of very sensual ways of talking about holding you or, you know, even putting, you know, sensing you with all my senses and all these, there's a lot of different beautiful ways that we try to point to the same, the same connective power that I think is maybe.
Something like the key or the portal into understanding ourselves beyond either or as multiplicities, as connected. I don't know where you are today and I know you've probably lived a very different life than me. You have this whole path you have a completely different, not completely different.
I'm sure we share some. [00:12:00] Some steps on our paths or our paths have crossed at some point, some way, even right now, only here we are together. But how beautiful that to think about all of you out there with all of your paths and your very unique individual positions. And then here we are sharing this space for a little while together at different times, but somehow at the same time.
I just, there's something so powerful in that and if, if I can connect it to lof or if I can even sort of open that space of care in any way through that portal, then it is absolutely worth doing all of this. That's why I do it actually. Um, and that's why I'm trying to learn how to be okay with if people make fun of me, because I talk about love, even though I'm supposed to be a serious philosopher or scientist, or vice versa, if [00:13:00] people say, oh, you know, you're too intellectual because I am.
Probably all those things, uh, at different times, depending on where you've come and where you are right now, you'll be interpreting me in a different way and it's not a wrong way. Um, it's a way I can learn from and I'm trying to learn from it and to find that space of not judging myself and not judging the people who seem to be judging me, but maybe they're just expressing where they're coming from.
On both sides. You know, it also goes the other way. When people think that you know all the answers and you're gonna save them. That's something else too, because none of us are any of these categories. We're all here trying to connect and care for each other and open portals for each other into that place of understanding that we're more than one thing.
We're multiplicities. We're nested lives. We're all connected. By this care, this powerful, powerful [00:14:00] possibility to sit in presence without judgment together and realize that something is connecting us. It's we're communicating, and I don't mean through the technology. If anything, it's better in person with yourself or with anyone.
With a tree, with a dog, with a cat. With wherever you can start just being, noticing another life as yourself and noticing yourself as life that you, and, and not judging yourself. Let, letting all those voices go and all those fears and just let it all go. For three minutes. It'll change. It'll change you if you can just do it for three minutes.
Sit, care for yourself. Care for a tree care. And by care I just mean be with it. Notice it, listen to it. Uh, some of us do that through reading books and studying and getting degrees and, you know, becoming very [00:15:00] professional scientists. But really the root of it is that we want. To give something and to to, to line up with that energy and feel it flowing through us into the world because so many give us gifts.
You know, here we are and we've all been through different things. Some of, you've probably been through very painful things as well, and, but you're still here and I promise you, you've given something to someone that's helped them no matter who you are. It might be a complete stranger that you just said one word to that they still remember, but we all do it for each other.
We can't escape it. So the more we can be aware of that maybe, and feel the care and feel that you are part of me and I'm part of you not fully because you're unique and I'm unique Holly needs a haircut, but whatever way that you can connect to life and [00:16:00] whoever is around you, doesn't matter if you know them or not.
Just noticing the life and the care. It's a good way to start. It's a good portal and to what I hope we're finding ways to do in this podcast, which is um, which is move beyond either or. Which is not to say that either side is wrong or right, just let them be and explore what's holding them. Because if there's two things there, there must be something holding them.
And when you start to explore that space that's holding them, you realize, oh, it's not only either or, there's a whole constellation of possibilities. There's a whole way we can turn the kaleidoscope in different directions and see things differently. And that's what it is. You know, you, you learn how to be sensual in different ways and how to connect in different ways.
As you explore those different perspectives and you expand what's possible for you, or at least that's what I'm hoping we find ways to do together. Because everything I'm telling [00:17:00] you here is just coming from all of the people I've talked to, all of the books I've read, all of my own experiences that I've connected in different ways because we all bring something unique to everything that's given to us because we have to, we're we're unique space atemporal.
Um, positions, people lives. There's no one like you in the world, so you have something to give just by that. You've seen the world differently. You've sensed the world differently. It's not only about seeing you've been sensual in the world differently, and that's what I hope we can come together here and explore together.
How can I, how can we, how can you, anyone who wants to be part of this project. Open spaces for listening to each other and exploring those multiplicities of what we bring out in each other. Just noticing, listening, caring, and not in a sentimental or silly way, [00:18:00] just trying to be present to the power that is actually possible, just through bringing our attention to.
Where we are right now and to noticing one another without judgment. You know, it's been said in a million ways to try to do that. And, um, a good piece of art does that. A good movie, a good book, a good conversation, a good walk. So let's try to find ways to help each other explore that space. And if you have any.
If you have any ways that you wanna share, I would really love to hear them. So that's my love and philosophy diary for today. That's what's on my mind. Uh, I didn't really answer what is love, because I think that that's just a word pointing to all this I've been trying to dance around. But I do think it's present real.
This, this, this, this thing. We're trying to point out with the word love, and I [00:19:00] wanna find out more about it. And I, the more I am okay with sitting in that space or walking in that space, or swimming in that space, uh, the more the world begins to become magical again. And it's always magical, magical in the sense of beyond what I've imagined possible.
Potent with powers that I haven't understood fully. That's all. And whatever way we come to that together, I think is an interesting path and I hope we can share those paths here. So. I hope that wherever you are out there, you are doing well, and that something happens today that gives you a glimpse of love and whatever language that you use, whatever that word means to you at its very best.
and at its most authentic is kind of a weird word, but at its most, um.[00:20:00]
At its most present for your life where you are right now. All right. Till next time?
Audio Only - All Participants: Mm-hmm.