Expanded rationalism and... giant killer crabs

Excerpts from a recent video chat with Robin Ince. The complete video is available HERE.

Alan Moore: [...] I'd call it an expanded rationalism. You know, I don't see that you need to abandon rationalism when thinking about mystical ideas... yes, you probably have to abandon scientific rationalism when you're talking about things that are happening in the mind.
You're probably in uncharted territory that I'm not sure that science is authorized to speak about, to talk about the inner world that all of us have.

But yeah I think an expanded rationalism that sort of can allow that...
Yes science is the best way, the best tool that humanity has come up with for actually figuring out the world that's around us but... that is the world that's around us and not the world that's inside us, where  there are very different rules, there are very different properties.

And this is the world that either mysticism or art is best equipped to investigate, you know. But, yeah, I I think that we we need to have a warmer universe than is suggested by strict scientific rationalism.

 

I think that, yes, the universe probably does end in freezing darkness and entropy, all of these things are perfectly true. And that there is no teleological direction, as far as we know, for the universe. That seems to be true which would imply that the Universe was potentially meaningless. Now there I have to draw a line because... It's not meaningless. I mean WE, as far as we know, are the highest consciousness that we have yet to discover in the universe. At least we may be the highest consciousness in the universe for all we know. I would say that that certainly gives us the right to determine... WE supply meaning.

I mean obviously meaning is a human phenomenon, it's not something that is like gravity or electromagnetism. WE as the universe is... as the conscious part of the universe... WE should totally, surely be able to decide what has meaning and what doesn't.

So yeah I think that sort of you need to have a bit of a stretched out consciousness, it needs to go beyond the purely rational. This doesn't mean that it has to spill over into lunatic irrationality but that sort of... rationality is a system and any system has its boundaries, otherwise it wouldn't be a system.
So, sort of that as humans we need I think on a fairly regular basis to transcend those boundaries whether it's sort of... you know by mysticism by poetry or by reading a lot of books about giant killer crabs.

You know, we need that element in our lives. 

We all need some giant killer crabs in our lives! [...]

You can watch the complete video HERE.