What the &#%! Is Value?

About this episode: We have established that our values are not just social constructs or personal preferences. They reflect a deeper sense of value itself, which is foundational to reality. But what is this value we’re talking about? In this dialogue, Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Zak Stein offer a startlingly simple and profound answer: Value is clarified desire. They state that the universe isn’t a random collection of matter, but it contains “plotlines of desire”, an ongoing story of the Cosmos yearning for deeper intimacy and greater wholeness, which disclose value and make it as ontologically real as mathematics. Then conversation then turns to a critical question: if value is so fundamental, why is it so often distorted? By the end, you will have a powerful new understanding of what value truly is and why reclaiming clarified desire is the most essential task for navigating the modern world. Note on Source Material and Citation: Parts of the material covered in this podcast is drawn from a forthcoming volume published by the World Philosophy and Religion Press: Reconstructing Value & Preserving Human Freedom in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Exit the Silicon Maze, Vol. 1 If you deploy any material from this episode, please cite directly using the following reference: Temple, David J., Conversations with David J. Temple, World Philosophy and Religion Press, December 2025, Episode: “What the %! Is Value?” About the Authorial Voice of David J. Temple: David J. Temple is a pseudonym created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship between Dr. Marc Gafni, Dr. Zak Stein and Ken Wilber at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, a leading international think tank whose mission is to address existential risk by articulating a shared universal Story of Value for global intimacy and global coordination. The Center focuses its work on a world philosophy, Cosmo-Erotic Humanism, as the ground for a global vision of value, economics, politics, and spiritual coherence. Check out the full transcript at: https://worldphilosophyreligion.substack.com/ Chapters: 0:00 — Introduction 1:05 — Context Setting 6:56 — Value Is Clarified Desire, and the Nature of Value Is That It Is Self-Validating 7:49 — Value In Evolutionary Terms – A Value Is the Desire of Reality 8:44 — Clarified Need Equals Value. Clarified Desire Equals Value. Clarified Need and Desire Equal Value. 9:28 — Reality Is Desire Disclosing Value 11:20 — When Answering What Is Value, We Go Immediately to the Lineage Traditions and Then to the Ontology of Value 14:07 — Value Pre-Exists the Emergence of the Human Mind, It Suffuses and Haunts Reality as It Exists 15:16 — About First Principles and First Values 16:11 — The Great Lineages Say: Spirit Is Real, God Is Real. Our Hermeneutic Says: Value Is Real. 20:48 — Our Hermeneutic Allows Us to Salvage the Work That Was Done in the Clarification of Desire by the Great Traditions 24:12 — Misinterpretations of Desire Can Grease the Wheels of Late-Stage Capitalism 26:39 — There Are Five Movements Against Story 31:38 — Value Is Not Extractable, Co-opt-able, Transformable Into Your Own Pet Project 34:05 — Value Is a Great Pleasure and Pleasure Is a Great Value 37:30 — Invitation to the Who We Must Become Community Get full access to Center for World Philosophy and Religion at worldphilosophyreligion.substack.com/subscribe