Reflections on Death and the Self

This is a iHot podcost guaranteed human Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness. I'm Shique O'Neill and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about ZP bound to zipotine, the first knowni FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity. TZzbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zbound is approved as a two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection. Zbound contains trizepetide and should not be used with other trizepotide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines It is not known if ZPBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take up allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medulary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop step bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Zet bound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems Talk to your doctor. callall one eight hundred five four five five nine seven nine or visit zbound. liily. com Are you an adult with uncontrolled, moderate to severe Crohn's disease symptoms and still packing a backup bag of clothes? Just in case. Sky Rzz Rizen Kizimab RizzA can help you take control of your crohns. Feel significant symptom relief, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at four weeks. Plus, SkyRizzy is proven to help people achieve remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. Individual results may vary. Sky RIzy is a prescription injection medicine Don't use if allergic to Sky RIizz, sererious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines. Liver problems leading to hospitalization may occur when treated for Crohns. Ready to take control of your Crohns? Ask your doctor about Sky Rizzy, the number one prescribed biologic Crohn's disease Learn more at skkyrizzy. com or call one eight six six Sky Rizzy This is Boen Yang and Matt Rogers from Las Coaristas with Matt Rogers and Boen Yang. JBL wireless earbuds are for those who are the first to try something unique. The first wireless earbuds on the market with a touch screen case, which allows you to control your audio without reaching for your phone. They also have a touchscreen smart charging case for one touch control I love being able to touch my buds and control the volume. With a built in wireless transmitter that lets you plug and play with any device you want, JBL wireless earbuds connects you to all your favorite music, movies, and games. JBL wireless earbuds. Grab a pair at jbl. com whyy do things exist? We have swallowed wholesale this idea that everything can be reduced to scientific explanations I just don't think that's true. What is the most dangerous idea people believe without questioning? There are very few things that people can be certain of. Pay attention when you are convinced that you know why you're doing something. What is a good life? I would ask what they mean by good What do you think people are most afraid to admit about life D it comes to an end? Alex Oonor, welcome on Purpose. Jay. Nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you, Ray. I've been looking forward to meet you for a long time. I've been a consumer and fan of your content, thoroughly enjoy watching you, whether it's debate, conversation, very, very intriguing stuff. I wanted to start by asking you, I hope you've never been asked before. I don't think I saw this, but What's a childhood memory that you have that you feel defines who you are today My childhood is a bit unusual given the line of work I found myself in. I grew up just sort of south of Oxford City Centre, in a place called Blackbird Leaves. When I think of my childhood, what I remember is like acting up at school. in secondary school kind of Not showing up for class, I used to skateboard. and I used to sort of wear jeans and the wrong shoes and have arguments with the teachers, that kind of petty stuff I like playing music, so I'd like skit class to be in the school recording studio, that kind of stuff And you know, somebody asked me recently I was doing a talk with some school kids and one of them asked like, do you think your upbringing has affected your worldview And that's a diffic question to answer because we never know for sure. If someone asks like, whyy are you an atheist? There's one sense in which you could say I don't believe that the contingency argument is sound. And there's another in which you could say, because my parents got divorced when I was eight. you know what I mean? And those can kind of be both true And so it's difficult to sort of psychologize But I was thinking like, yeah, maybe the fact that I had this slightly sort of acting out rebellious attitude. meant that when I came across the new atheist movement, something about the debait Something about the theater attracted me to it because I had that kind of attitude as a child My memory would be kind of like walking into school at like midday wearing the wrong uniform and having somebody kind of say you know you really should be wearing black shoes and just saying, I'llort it out tomorrow kind of just being kind of childhood I had, which is maybe not what people would expect given how much I care about being a bit more like studious these days and how I'm kind of associated with like academics, I'm not an academic myself, but I speak to them all the time and I've got a university degree and this kind of stuff I find that's also kind of like helpful for people to hear sometimes because a lot of people listen to my stuff who are really interested in like philosophy or theology or whatever it is, but they don't like school. They don't do so well at school, not interested. And I kind of want to say that's okay. L donon't flunk out. do the best you can, but don't take school or your sort of desire to be in school or academia as a proxy for your desire to like learn about the world, you know? So it sounds like there was a bit of a rebellious anti establishment pushing back version of you, but maybe not. everyone wants to say that, right? Everyone wantks to sort of be well, I was such a I was a rebellious child and I used to sort of win debates with my teachers. So like, yeah, but you know, nothing super profound. Just like your normal kind of slightly annoying kid But you were still great at school because you went to Oxford as well, so you would have got good grades. Eventually, right The first time I did what we call A levels in the UK, which is like the last two years of high school, I did Further maths, maths and physics. that's all hard subjects. And I did critical thinking as a side sort of and I got three U's, which is like If you go like ABCD E F U stand for are not. It means It's so low that it doesn't even register. I actually overslept one of the exams and I got a phone call from my mum U to wakeaking me up being like, you Like I just had a call from the school and the disappointment in a it was horrifying, you know, but I just I just didn't care It was really only in like the last year I had to go back and redo A levels because you have to stay in education until you're eighteen in the UK And I thought, you know what? whyy not let's give this a crack? So I got ABC doing humanity subjects. I remember I had some friends who We still have these friends who wanted to go to Oxford for the longest time, you know since they were young and they worked really hard at school I would sometimes joke you know, about how I was going to go to Oxford too And then they would laugh. and I'm like, okay, I am joking, but why is that so funny Why is that so funny? you know? And I kind of I got a bit motivated by these friends of mine, seeing that like ambition and drive kind of helps me in becoming their friends, was just a good influence in that very crucial period of like sort of motivating me to get the grades, which allowed me to go to Oxford. But then again, like you know, if you're flunking out school right now, if you're doing your exams and you think it's like the end of the world, retake these exams. It's not the end of the world. And if you don't get into your dream university, There are all kinds of reasons why I might have preferred to have gone to a different university. It's just like nice to know that There are options. I think young people, everything's so serious when it comes to exams and they are you know, take them seriously. It's better if you do well, sure. but it's not the end of the world if you don't. Yeah. And you can take them again. Yeah, exactly. Talk to me about that flipping mindset though, because getting a you turning up to an exam and then turning it around and being able to go, this is important. Talk to me about that shift though, because I think at that age We do place such a heavy weight on these things not showing up, not turning up failing, feeling like it's not working out, but then being able to flip it around within a short period of time. It was such a long time ago and you can't fully say this is exactly what I was doing. Talk to me about at least what it feels like when you reflect back and go why you felt. I'm going to change my mindset around this. I think it was because I knew that I could day more I knew that I could pass the exam. I knew that I do philosophy and critical thinking and this kind of stuff just sort of flunking out of school in that way. for me it was a very intentional thing. I'm not interested in this. I want to be a rock star or a professional skateboarder or something like that instead kind of got the feeling that peopleeople like didn't believe me, you know They thought that the reason why I'm failing is because I'm not you know I don't have the goods. I can't do this kind of stuff. And it wasn't just that, it wasn't like I just thought I need to prove a point now When I suddenly got this idea in my head that it would be fun to go to university It would be cool. And I started admiring new atheist figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom studied at Oxford. And I'd also started making YouTube videos. This was the other thing, right? I'm like seventeen when I start making videos online, at least the videos I make today. And they were these kind of edgy new atheist videos And They started doing quite well relative for the time And I think there was also this feeling of like, if I'm going to be on the internet talking about, you know God and religion and debating people and stuff I bet better prove that I know I'm talking about it. It feels it weird to be doing that. and then like failing school.. And so I kind of knew that I could do it. I thought that it might be useful. And so I just sort of decided to give it another go was very much a case of being like, yeah, see, I can I can do this. I just didn't want to before. And I kind of regret that I didn't. But then having said that If I'd have done further maths and physics who knows what I'm doing now? and I'd still be interested in philosophy, but I think that deffinitely a good thing that it went the other way. Yeah. I appreciate you addressing some things about how young people are feeling today about college or not going or university whether attending When you think about it from that perspective, you said you knew you had the goods I think a lot of young people today feel they don't have the goods They don't actually feel confident in their ability academically at school or even otherwise What do you say to them? What do you think about for someone who's lookingooking at that going, Yeahah, I don't even know what I would do. I don't know what I'd study. I don't really know myself. You got interested in Atheism early, you were making content. you were almost this you were this self starter, it seems ten years ago which again was pretty revolutionary for someone your age because there's not that many people that got started that early. What would you say to someone right now who's saying, Alex, you know, I'd love to do something like you or my own thing, but I actually don't know what I'm good at. I don't know what my strengths are. I think it's really rare to know what you want to do at any age, essentially. a lot of people fall into what they do. certainly at that age, and I think that You kind of have to either take a guess. and realize that you can always change your mind. Or you can do it later You're going to be good at something There's going to be something you' look at and it might be something which isn't traditionally recognized as a form of intelligence In intelligence is a difficult thing to define, but it's probably something like the ability to perform particular tasks. It's the ability to like Perform tasks with a particular goal in mind. That's why we call AI artificial intelligence, even though it might not be conscious or a person or anything. The intelligence is the ability to perform tasks and there's something you can do. People who are musically talented It's a very particular kind of genius. They might have absolutely no idea what the quadratic equation is. They can just intu it musical feeling in a way that other people just couldn't even comprehend. There might be skills that you didn't even know were skills. Maybe you're like really good at architecture and your school just doesn't do art and it would take a long time for you to realize that that's the thing you're into. It took me a long time to realize architecture was even like a subject that existed the study. You know what I mean? Yeah, I love that point. There's going to be something you're good at. and if you're being told that you're not good at something, it may be that you're not putting enough effort in and that you're slacking in which case, try bit harder. But if you feel like you are, you're doing your best, you're trying as hard as you can and people keep telling you you need to try harder It's probably just that they're not recognizing things that you're good at. We have no idea why some people are good at things and others not. It could be social, it could be genetic, it could be anything. Wh knows? All that matters right now You're good at some things and bad at others. I think the best advice anyone can give on that regard, in that regard is to figure out as quickly as possible what you're good at That's the most important thing. What are you good at and what do you enjoy doing and try to see that and then realize that you don't have you don't have to go to university Even if you want to be a physicist or a mathematician, eventually you'll probably have to. but don't have to do it now. You can take some time out. you can think, is this really what I want to be doing? You can go and travel the world or whatnot If you really want to go down the academic route, there are always options available for you. and there are so many now. you can do them online, you can do them virtually, can do them part time. There's always something available for you. It's so obvious to someone who's an adult Someone who's like currently working in a cafe and doesn't really know what they want to do with themselves It's not going to console them to say, Hey man, you don't need to worry about academia., I didn't even think of that. But when you're a kid, academia is like the only thing. only thing. Unless maybe you're like a particularly talented footballer mus school and then But even then maybe your school doesn't encourage that kind of thing. And you will be told that the most important thing in your life are your exams Don't get meong, Th those exams are important, like nail them, it will help you in the long run idea that That is kind of what life's about. is obviously insane. And I think kids like know that, but they haven't like felt it, they haven't internalized it. I speak to a lot of school kids and they've heard this kind of stuff. You know, don't let exams rule your life and stuff, but some of them I think, hearing that I literally did just completely fail and then changed my mind and turn it around and it sort of relaxes them a little bit. There's no guarantee that you're going to be able to turn it around and go to Oxford, It's obviously not the case. I feel very lucky in that regard But like There are options, man I love the idea that You only discover subjects exist after you become an adult. I felt like that with so many things. I thought I hated science because it was biology and then learned about neuroscience later on and I was fascinated Eactly. And I thought, Ohh gosh, if I didn't have to learn plant biology, if it was always brain biology, I think I would have been That would have been something I would have wanted to study and you can now. That's the point, right? You can textiles. Yeah. But I think you can get the kernel of what you might be into.. Mbe you might find that you really enjoy your art classes And you know you don't want to be an artist. You're not going to be the next you know, monet or whatever, but like you enjoy it. That should be enough to maybe think, okay, then I'll study that. and I don't know where it's to end up, but that's the kind of thing that opens up these worlds that you didn't know existed. That will help being able to be an architect Yes, because you will be able to draw images. It will help with doing textiles. it will help with set management. You know, you could be someone who designs sets for podcasts, a job that didn't even exist really when I was at school. And now it's a very specific, very niche thing that people are after. The most important thing is the passion. It would always really upset me when a university there were people who would struggle a lot with the work and then also think And I'm not even sure if I should be doing this I don't know if this was the right subject. That's just that's nihilism, man. Suffering is one thing Being aware that your suffering is kind of meaningless. That's what nihilism is. And that's what can be brought out if you study something you're not passionate about and then it gets hard becausecause you've got this double whammy The meaninglessness plus the difficulty. But so many of us are stuck exactly there. You know, if someone studies theology or philosophy, it's famously a very unemployable job. What are you going to do except be a priest or a YouTuber I can deal with the fact that What's this all for? Is this going anywhere? Is this going to get me a job Be I've got this passion for it because I just love it for its own sake Maybe you're studying to be a doctor. you're doing medicine. And maybe you're not super passionate about it. A lot of people are, but maybe you're not. But you think to yourself, well, I know where this going. I'm going to be doctor, I'm going to save lives, I'm going to make a lot of money I'm going to provide for my children. And that allows you to deal with the fact that you're not passionate about it You need at least one of those. You need the passion or the direction. If you have both, then you've hit the gold mine. If you have neither, then I think you become a bit nihilistic at least in regards to to your employment. Absolutely. I've heard you say, Alex that you're fascinated by history. Oh yeah. And I wanted to ask you if you could go back in time and witness. somethingomet personally What moment in history would you choose and why I'm afraid it's going be boring in the sense that it is definitely going to be something biblical. Like there's no question about Really no question. Any time. There are certain things which it might be sort of interesting. To see, I'd love to see Stone henge getting built I'd to see the pyramids be built, that kind of stuff. But when I came back and said You know, turns out they used a pulley system and everyone goes like, oh, cool. It's not the most profound thing in the world. For me My line of work is so much engaged. in Worldview and the worldview that I'm mostly engaged in talking about his Christianity And some of the biggest mysteries about the Christian religion are about specifically the kinds of things that Jesus actually said and did, as opposed to what Orthodox Christians believe he did The resesurrection is an obvious example. Stand outside the tomb of Joseph of Armothhea and see if somebody gets up and walks out. But also the baptism I'd love to see the baptism of Jesus because I want to know why was Jesus being baptized Who was John the Baptist Why did Jesus seem to be some kind I mean, historically, some people think he might have been a disciple of John the Baptist, which Christians won't want to accept, but I'd love to know that fact. It's the moment where Jesus' ministry really begins And the gospels tell us that the heaven's open and there's this voice from heaven and that This is where Jesus sort of picks up some of his initial disciples from as well. I would love to see what happened there becausecause if I showed up and John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And I would say, gosh, okay Christianity's maybe got something going for it. But if you showed up and Jesus bowed down as headmaster, you know, then I think tootally upset Orthodox Christianity And I think that's like a really important question. What's the relationship between Jesus and Jon the Baptist? So I'd love to see them meet But it's hard to know. I mean, you've surely got an answer to this question yourself. Sometimes I find myself being fascinated by so many moments in history and mainly it's about human decision making So I don't know if you saw this movie recently it's called Nuremberg. I haven't seen it. It's all about the Nuremberg trials and post World War two, how we make decisions on morality, how we make decisions on how we evaluate The Germans did And you got Gering who is leading the Germans on behalf of Hitler versus his therapist played by Ramy Malik, who's unbelievable in the movie But I look at a moment like that and I go, wow, like humans had to really sit down and think about because for the first time ever How do you truly court for post World War II and the actions that were taken against the Jews. and I'm like That's a fascinating moment to be a part. No that's not that long ago. Yeah So then you go, okay, where were those other moments in history where big decisions were made by groups of human beings after groups of human beings went through certain amount of suffering, turmoil or subjugation? And when you don't have documents, I mean, because when history is recent enough You can kind of put yourself there by reading the books. O obviously there's going to be bias and misreporting and stuff like that and you've got to be careful, but like I think I' far back enough especially into ancient history, you've got like one little shred, some of our most well known, famous historical figures from antiquity. We only know they exist from like maybe one, maybe two sources, It's like a scrap of the pirus somewhere with a name scribbled on it. And yet these people were so important So I think it would have to be it would have to be an ancient. Yes, yeah. I back. I would genuinely want to go back to the point at which the bug Gita was spoken, which has always been my fascination and my form of study. being at that I wouldn't want to be on theattlefield because I could handle myself. I'll tell you that, I'd fll miserably at Archery or anything like that. Do you think if you went back you would find Arjuna on a literal battlefield being advised by by an actual deity. I would hope so. I mean, the place Kur Eeta exists, it's believed that that is where the battle took place. And so to me I would hope, I would definitely hope so that I would get to experience it as it's told in the way it's told as a historic piece. If you went back and you found there were no such historical event O maybe there were historical battles, but like conversation that's had throughout the Bag of Agita is a fictional one. Would that like trouble you because for me I'd still quite like the bag of that Gitater. I'd find it worth reading. I think I'd find the text still fascinating. I think you'd You'd feel slightly misled in the fact that you were told it was historical. Sure. ye ye. So I think I wouldn't have an issue with what's in the book and the conversation because I find great value and meaning in that, but I would feel misled that I'd been told this was historic and it wasn't actually historic. It's so important like what the claim is that's being made by particular religious traditions. for example for many Christians If it turns out that the resurrection of Jesus is not a literal event that happened in history, but instead some kind of later mythologizing The religion falls apart. It grounds itself on a very specific historical claim. It can't just be, o, I'm a bit annoyed that my pastor told me that this really happened, but I guess this is fine. It would be like this is completely upended everything that I believe about the universe. That's one of the reasons why when you ask what historical event would I see? The key moment in the world's most popular religion seems to be quite an important one to me. Suppose you went and found out that you Jesus didn't rise from the dead or you found out that Muhammed was a false prophet. What are you going to do? Like come back to London and go wr, hear ye, hear ye. I've got to tell you guys something.'d be terrif I'd rather not know, because I'd be terrified to let people know what I'd seen. Yeah. And no one would believe you. Exactly, yeah. O would be you'd start developing a following on YouTube. Yeah Yeah. You'd be able to create your own cult Talk to me about what Reading you have done in Eastern traditions. It sounds like you have done a bit of exploration that I probably haven't heard about before. Basically, it's really funny because I talk about religion all the time, and particularly Christianity People say things like, E man should about you should talk about Hinduism I'm like O, I get way of saying that, That's fair. I'd love to, but it's not quite as simple as that. Of course not. You know what I mean It's a really even when it comes to like people say, well you should have a Hindu on your show to talk to them. And I'm like even that. It's tricky, because firstly, I prepare as hard as I can for every guest that comes on my show I can't learen Hinduism And even so, it's not like you can just have a Hindu on the show become like, oh've you've done Hinduism now. It took me a long time Even sort of finding my feet as to like where to start looking for interesting stuff. And my way in ultimately came through my study of consciousness. I'm fascinated by the philosophy of mind. And of course, the Indian tradition has this amazing content, essentially on the philosophy of mind that I hadn't really encountered before. Coming convince us some weird views about consciousness about how it's not reducible to material and how It's not as simple saying that brains just produce consciousness, that kind of stuff sort of let me into learning about specifically the addvita Vanta tradition addvite of Vedanta meaning like The Vaders are Hindu S scriptal canon. they're like the oldest religious scriptures in the world. I think like aner means I think it's the the addendum anter means like end. So you get like end of the Vaders, meaning like the latter part of the Vaders, which collectively are known as the Aanishat And adviter meaning like A Non and diter meaneaning dewel So in the philosophy of mind, I think in philosophy generally, one of the biggest questions is how many types of stuff are there because there's this really weird sort of division of reality where we're conscious, we have subjectivity, like inner thoughts And this mug over here doesnn't So there seems to be kind of two different kinds of things. You've basically got three options when it comes to explaining that. One is that there are just two types of things in the universe. There's mind Body There's mental and there's physical and they are just separate kinds of things and somehow they interact with each other Another way is to say, actually there's only one type of stuff and that type of stuff is the dead stuff. It's the matter, the atoms. This is the most popular view in the West today. The only stuff that exists is atoms that are dead And it's just that if you put them together in the right way, you get this s called consciousness, but really it's kind of just a manifestation of the atoms. There's a third option, which is there is only one type of stuff and it's the mental stuff And what we call physical, what we call the physical world around us, is a manifestation of mental stuff which sounds super hippie dippy But that's only because we're not used to it I mean, the idea that people think that, you know, they're just happy to accept that if you put physical matter together in the right order produce thoughts That is as weird to me a saying that if you put thoughts together in the right order produce some physical matter It seems like a sort of category mistake, right I think there's only one type of stuff So there's this view, which in the Western tradition is called idealism which is kind of the view that everything exists as mental stuff Some people have said that everything is kind of an idea in the mind of God. Some people think that Nothing exists except in sofar as it's being perceived It's a very sort of complicated and quite philosoph tradition, but something that The addvite of Aanta tradition had been banging on about for thousands of years prior to its development in the Western Canon. The reason it's Vedanta is because the Apanishads are like particularly interested in the idea that kind of Division is an illusion and unity is real heavily implies that consciousness or like the soul kind of stuff that makes you yourself is kind of one thing with everybody else's self and that all of that consciousness is kind of the same thing as the universe, that there's this great big sort of unity of stuff I thought that was really cool So it's a bit of a sort of long wind way to say that I started looking into that. And then I had Swami Sava Prianda, he's the head of the Vanta Society of New York or whatever it's called show and we talked about addv Vanta, we talked about consciousness. We didn't talk about the Hindu pantheon of gods. I still don't understand how Brahman manifests in like hundreds of different deities. I still don't really get that at all. don't know about the different traditions who see different deities as their main gods and stuff like that. I don't really understand that I understand the philosophy of consciousness, we were able to have a great conversation about this particular Indian tradition. But the thing about Advid Vidanta is it's not really a religious tradition, it's a philosophical tradition that comes from India So when I do this show, yeah, I'm speaking to a Hindu. and people say, great, you're talking about Hinduism for the first time. It's like, No I'm not really I'm talking about a philosophical school that comes from India, which is not the same thing. I mean, the word Hindu is very unhelpful anyway, because it's what's called an exon, which is a word which is applied from the outside. People didn't call themselves Hindus It's sort of got ethmological roots with like the Indus River Valley, which is where a particular people We're just doing their thing, just going about their business and Europeans sort of label these people Hindus but it sort of refers to the Geograph someone saying like, have a Hindu on. it' It's of a little bit like someone saying like have a European on I can get why somebody if you'd never spoke to a European, would want me to speak to a European because there is a different flavor of thought that goes on there, but it's such a rich and varied of culture No Ireci You can't do that. So when someone says like like you ask, you know What's your engagement with the Indian tradition It's sort of like somebody saying, What's your engagement in the Wesn philosophical canon That's a big question I got to say, I'm much more specific, you know,. I'm interested in this person, that person, this school. And so for me, the stuff that I love from the Indian tradition is their use on consonsciousness which I think predates the Western stuff and does it a lot more sort of intuitively. Inoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness. I'm Shquill O'Neill and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about ZPbound to Zepotyine. The first Ni FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity. ZPBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA TZbound is approved as two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection. Zbound contains trizepetide and should not be used with other trizepetide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had Medulary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop stepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Z bound with a sulfonyal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems Talk to your doctor. callall one eight hundred five four five five nine seven nine or visit zbound. liily. com Your routine should be anything but vanilla, but your ready to go wellness can be. Bring flavor and function together with Vital proteins, vanilla colloagen, and protein sug. With thirty grams of protein and ten grams of collagen pepttides, it supports hair, skin, nails, joints, ready whenever you are. So you're also fueled and ready to go. Vitalroteins. Stay vital. visit vitalroteins dot com and get started These stments have not been evaluated productducts not intended to diagnose, treat cure or prevent any disease Heat up your fourourth of July at the Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under three hundred dollars and make every gathering one to remember. Give your outdoor space a glow up. Whatever your budget is, with savings on seasonal plants starting at five dollars. With the grill fired up and your backyard set to perfection, you'll be able to invite friends and family over to kick off the party Start celebrating with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Prices may vary stor exisions willice see Home Depot com st priceash for details Are there a lot of new age atheists that are also fascinated in that way Is that common or is that quite rare? I don't think newew atheists because the new Atheist movement was a very And it's interesting how we talk about it in the past tense now, L it doesn't really exist anymore. It A very sort of prickly kind of criticism And it's indebted to the so called four horsemen, mostly Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Daniel Dennett wasn't quite as fierce, you know These guys You've got a biologist and an evolutionary biologist and Richardawkin A journalist and Christopher Hitchens a neuros scientist,though I don't know if he did anything further than his like studies, Tam Harris And then you got the philosopher Daniel Dennett and notice that the philosopher is the one who's like the least know critical in that regard and outgoing. although he had a lot to say about religion The reason why these guys and other disciplines were getting involved is because like Richard Dawkins was annoyed that young Earth creationists were saying you can't teach evolution in schools Christopher Hitchens was getting annoyed that religious justifications were being used for geopolitical terrorism That was that kind of line of attack. And so to think that they would be talking about that kind of stuff that Hitchens would be sort of standing up and complaining about the sort of the messianic undertones of the Israeli Palestine conflict and then suddenly start going, but you know, I think that Brahman and Atman are maybe the same thing I want to critique that idea by, you know, appealing to the rival It just seems ridiculous to me. So I think new atheism But that's because within Eastern religions, you have the same kind of conflicts going on, which I don't think that West knows as much about But also the kind of engagement I have is not about that. Like I say, I'm not interested so much in the in the deities and the gods and sex, I'm interested in philosophical traditions. And I don't think the new atheists were even interested in the Western philosophical traditions. They were interested in the practical reality of religion Religion is a force for evil, releligion causes wars and that kind of stuff That's all very well and good To me, I've always compared that to saying like, it's like saying politics is bad. Yes. Sure, you know, politics causes wars and politics drives families of it. It's like that's true That doesn't mean we should be anarchist. Maybe we should, but it doesn't guarantee it. It doesn't mean there isn't a correct political position. Teaking that kind of stuff. doesn't mean that you know anything about political philosophy you might not know anything about theories of justification of the state or whatever it is that polical philophersit around talking about, you know And I think the same thing's going on with newtheism couldn't recite Thomas Aquinas caausal arguments for God. If You paid them to. Richard Dawkins does so in the God deelusion. he sort of responds to Thomas Aquinas directly. Thomas Aquinas is the most celebrated Christian metaphysician. Like in history. And he responds to Thomas Aquinas in about two pages. It takes more than two pages even to explain the terminology that Thomas Aquinas is using, let alone to list, explain and then debunk I think we have some evidence There's just not this engagement with the philosophical tradition. I don't mean to insult these people. I like Richard, Richard's a friend of mine I think he knows that I disagree with his philosophical musings, and he himself just admits, he says that he's just not interested in theology and philosophy It's just not what he wants to do. He wants to do science I think fair enough But then maybe don't write a book with a chapter called why there almost hurertainly is no God But he did it because he cared about science doesn't care about the Calarm cosmological argument or whatever. he cares about evolution being taught in schools and that kind of stuff. And so the idea that someone who cares about that and that's their way in is suddenly going to become interested in the even in phhilosophy in the West is not very popular The idea that these guys are going to engage with that, I think is untrue. And so that funnels down to modern day, the sort of teenage atheists like me on YouTube making videos It took me years before I even encountered Indian philosophy and that only came after I sort of calm down a bit. Everyone's almost arguing something from their very I don't know maybe it narrows the wrong word, but everyone's looking at something through their lens and of course preaching or sharing whatever that may be, whether you're religious or whether you're an atheist or whether you're agnostic And it applies to everything in the same way as you could talk about entrepreneurship. And someone could say, Hey if you don't know how to sell, then you can't be an entrepreneur. And then someone else is over there going, if you don't know how to negotiate, you don't know how to be an entrepreneur. It's almost impossible to get a three hundred sixty degree view. on a belief and idea because There's so many different thoughts and ideas, how would you explain your worldview to a ten year old so that they simply understood it. I would probably Wait until this child was taking an interest in such things. And I might ask them, I mean, it might be a bit young tend to start talking about consciousness, but at some point I might sort of say Don't you think it's weir You are conscious, you have thoughts and feelings, you have an inner sense of self. I'd use different words because they're ten and this mug and this table in this chair And depending what they'd say, you'd ask a further question. So if they say, yeah, no I guess so But that's because you know you've got a brain. and then you might start asking about what they think the brain is and so you sort of ask questions. And in my view I think we have just sort of swallowed wholesale. this idea Everything can be reduced. to scientific explanation att least everything that is true about the universe can be scientifically explained. And I just don't think that's true. And I think it's like trivially untrue. I'm not making some profound what about love, man? You can't sentifically It's like, no, you can explain the chemicals that are firing. I mean something a bit more specific, which is that science isn't really in the business of explaining things. I'm no longer talking to the ten year old, by the way. Science is not in the business of explaining things. It's in the business of describing things mathematically Galileo famously says that mathematics is the language of the universe Fair enough Maths on its own doesn't do anything. Maths just describes All mathematical equations have an equal sign describbe some sort of about reality. It doesn't cause anything Newton's laws of motion Puse objects to move. They describe how objects move when they're in motion Similarly, the example I love to give because it's so explicit his nuisance discored. discovery of gravity What did Newton actually discover when he discovered gravity What's the thing that he actually figured out We had known for a very long time that objects fall to the ground, right? What's the thing that he realized Newton asked an interesting question. He looks up at the moon and he asks like Why isn't the moon falling towards the Earth And his sort of profound realization is that the moon is falling towards the earth all the time It's just that if something falls towards my hand willll hit my hand, but if I knock it to the side a little bit thenen it willll kind of do this. It willll kind of miss the earth a bit and then crash into the side. If I kn get a little bit further to the side, it willll sort of miss it even more and maybe crash into to the bottom eventually And if you knock at just the right speed to the side, it will keep falling towards the earth, but keep missing it And that's what we call orbit And Newton realized that the same thing that makes objects fall to the ground keeps the planets in circulation. which is a profound realization, and then he took to the task of mathematically describing it calculus, inverse square law. So he figures out that the distance between two things If you square that distance, That is how much weaker the force of gravity is. So if something is two times further away, it's four times less attractive And he does all of this and it's brilliant in the Prinpia mathematic. But then There remains this question Why Not how do objects fall to the ground, not what mathematical rules do they sort of do it by, but why do they fall to the ground? And in the Scolum which is like an addendum to can could be a mathemathac, where Newton plish these findings, he answers this explicitly. You can read this online. He says like as to what gravity actually is as to why this stuff is happening He writes hypothesis, non fingo in Latin. It means I frame no hypothesis He doesn't know. And he says it's also not the kind of question that science be engaged in because it can't answer that kind of question. In other words, Newton has described Brilliantly Plets, orbits, objects falling to the ground, this force, which he calls gravity And he just it's sort of a placeholder. It's like the word gravity is just a word for whatever is the thing that's making this happen, but he doesn't know what's making it happen. And it's so funny to me when people like, look into the past and they say, how silly are the beliefs that people used to have? They used to believe in like, animism, they used to believe in spirits. They used to believe that, you know Angels were pushing around planets in Sp but No no. Since the scientific Revolution, we're much more intelligent because we explain things in terms of Forces Forces Think about that word for a minute. You know what I mean? I' so used to hearing it That's it. And if you ask a scientist what a force is either have to tell you that a force is just a mathematical description of regularities that we've observed, or they'll have to say unjustifiably, well, it's the thing that makes things fall to the ground But what is it? You don't know that. You don't know why that's happening. Now, to be clear, some people will say, okay, fair enough with Newton. I picked Newton because he says it explicitly. This isn't an insult to science. It's not insulting to say that it's not really interested in the why question, it's interested in how question. Some people think the why question just shouldn't exist fine to say. science itself is definitely in the business of describing scientists will happily tell you that anything which is true about physics can be described mathematically But if you think about what maths is, it's equations. They don't do anything. Stephen Hawking, at the end of arief history of time, quite famously, I wish I could recite it from memory. It' so beautiful. He writes about he hopes that maybe one day our basic scientific theories will condense into one great big theory of everything. that There'll be one beautiful equation that sort of governs everything about the universe, but he says we'll still be left with the question of what breathes fire into the equations. Equations don't make things move They describe how things move when they're in motion, right So we're left with this great big explanatory gap. If people are in any doubt about this, there's a wonderful clip of Richard Feynman. There's a BBC interviewer asking him about magnets. He says, You know, when I push two magnets together, they repel each other. What's going on there? And Fyman's like Well,, you know the magnets are repelling each other. And he goes, Yeahah, no, I but you know, what's um What's happening there? And Feyman's like, what do you mean what's happening there? ' is a sort of moment of confusion. and the interviewer says, I've got to say, I think is a reasonable question. And Biden goes, Oh, no, it's a very reasonable question. But what do you mean? Be if you ask a question like why depend on your level of explanation. like Wh is Aunt Marie in the hospital Well because she slipped and fell on the ice For most people that would satisfy But if you were like an alien who didn't know anything, you'd need to know why slipping on ice sends you to a hospital. So you'd have to explain that. And then you'd have to explain like, why is I slippery Well, because When you step on ice, it evaporates the top level, which turns into water Notice we're just describing what's happening, o. But So why does that happen Well now we're talking about the molecular composition of water and and its sort of chemical interactions. But why does that happen? Feyman's just basically pointing out that if you ask the Y question You are sent into this regress down into the most fundamental questions of reality And in fact, Fenman then says, and if you want to know why At Marie fell over, you'd have to know about gravity. Why does gravity work? And that's where we just were a second ago, right This thing gravity which science will describe, but never explain why it's why it'ccurr And Feyman sort comes back to Magnets and says, so for now, you know, it will have to be enough just to say that they are repelling each other And that'sair enough, but I think that's what's going on Yeah science describes like physics is the description of and the theory of physical matter and its relations. It therefore presupposes the existence of Matter and its relations. One of the foundational questions I don't think science will answer is where that physical matter came from. It seems plausible. We say look at the progress we've made. We used to think that we couldn't explain biological complexity. But now we have. We used to think that we couldn't explain why objects fool, but now we have. I want to point out that firstly, what we've actually done is describe those processes But also, I think there's a categorical difference between explaining some kind of physical interaction at a deeper level and explaining the origin of physical matter and its interactions. don't think you will mathematically describe origin of the stuff which the mathematical descriptions apply to. Given what I've just said about how what scientific laws are are observations of stuff that happens in the universe and then mathematically describing how they regularly like o I've sometimes compred this it's a bit of crude analogy, but it get across the point to discovering a book of Shakespeare's sonnets If we came across a book of Shakespeare's sonnets and we didn't know what they were, then we might stop studying them And suppose that you were really, really smart and you said, okay Pople I've noticed that Each of these letters comes in two kinds' a big one and a small one And whenever there's a new line, they use the big one as interesting And you call that the law of capitalization. And then you notice that there are all of these little symbols, unlike the letters, little dots and squiggles. And you realize that they show up in predictable ways and you call that the law of punctuation. And you're able to predict. If you're really clever, you might notice that if you say it out loud, it follows a particular rhythm, Dun d dun d dun dun d dun. And you call that the law of iambic penthameter should in really clever now And you can predict that if I turn over the page I'm going to see something that follows these rules. What you're discovering, of course, are the laws of literacy. And then suppose I came along after all of that and said Okay, so where do you think the book came from? And you said, well, we don't know yet, but look at all the progress we're making with the laws that we've discovered, I'm sure that one day these laws of literacy We'll explain where the book came from You'd be m a categ err And I think the physicist does the same thing in saying that physics will one day explain the origin of physical matter Be physics is the study of physical matter. And therefore presupposes its existence A question like that I don't think can be answered by science. I'm really not talking to the ten year old anymore. I say I was to say Your ten year old is gonna be really reled. Okay dad, can I just can I get to bed now? Yeah. But like the reason I bring that up, it's to say, I mean, I remember I was kind of talking about consciousness and it's all like related because people have a similar view of consciousness. They think that science will one day explain what consciousness is and And you' try to encourage your child to us ask questions that I guess, uh maybe not comprehensively answered simply by science. Yeah. And also I want to be very clear here Lots of people will use this line of thought to try to sort of smuggle God in like of the g say, Okay, so science can't explain it so God must do so. That is categorically not what I'm doing here All I'm saying is that the lexicon of science cannot describe the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness. Those are the two things I think that science definitely can't describe That is not to say therefore God there might be some kind of what we might call naturalistic explanation, it's just not one that can be mathematized and therefore not sort of appropriate to use the Lxicon of science to subscribe That's fine. no problem with that still have this question. we still want to know, whyy is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of consciousness But I want to be very clear that this isn't some kind of underhanded way to like motivated reasoning to leave room God. It's just to say that when people this sort of confidence that the scientific method will explain everything because it's made such progress in the past, notice the precise nature of the progress it's made explain things, but only at a sort of deeper level of resolution. It has described the mechanism take natural selection Brilliantly. Darwin figures out the mechanism by which organisms Diversify and become complex and that's great. But it is a description, it's a description of what happens. And if you as Fenman says, if you really do keep following that Y question you'll get down to some quite foundational questions, which it's less controversial to say science will not be able to explain. When you put it that way and you look at both sides It seems to be more of a human mind's desire for certainty and completeness in thought which is why we end up on either side of the spectrum without the ability to navigate the messy middle, right? Specifically in this case, it's almost like, I either have to believe everything this book says is absolutely correct without any openness for questioning, thought or reflection or after to believe this book that I learned, that this textbook at school, everything it says must be correct without any reflection, thought or need for debate. And so it's almost like How do we get to a point where the human mind We allow it to have the ability to question our worldview and thoughts without losing all sense of certainty and stability because it seems as humans When people watch a debate nine out of ten times, people are just watching it to confirm their bias.ure. So they're already on one side. You're going to watch the debate and you're going to go, Yeahah, you know what? I'm fully with Alex You know, we don't know if God exists, but we definitely know science can't answer all the questions. Or on the other side, somethingone's like, well, I'm from that religion and that religious person is obviously spot on. So even when we watch a debate, we don't really ever come away from it going You know what? I just couldn't believe that he said that because we're just going there to confirm our belief. So I guess my question is, would you even encourage people to live in the messy middle of not being certain about their ideas. Do that A better human. I think that's where they do live. You think so? I mean, there are very few things that people can be certain of. In the sense of I would argue that most of the people you debate with or most religious or scientific people in the world, at least in the form of how they live are trying to live based on their beliefs. They have a very strong confidence. Yeah. conffidence meaning with faith. Certainly Yeah Fid and Latin fith I think if you speak to most of those people, they will at least ostensibly say, but I'm open to having my mind changed. partarticularly scientists. I mean, the whole thing about science is that it's open for correction. Like no scientist believes that we've like completed science. Yeah, of course. Scientists are very much like One day they hope Einstein will be proved completely wrong because it's exciting and it would like sharpen what we understand about You know what I mean? And so like, I don't think anybody has that kind of confidence that Got it all But I think there is a confidence in the method And fair enough. have a confidence in the scientific method because it's great. And again, I love science. I'm not trying to insult it or anything. I'm just saying be very precise about what it's doing and what it's not. And I think we could avoid A lot of Needless debate we understand exactly the parameters of like each of our disciplines. Disciplines like interact and they merge and stuff, but like if you're talking about Mathematical models There are things that mathematical models just can't do. And if you're talking about thought experiments and philosophy, there are things that thought experiments can't do. They cannot provide empirical proof of various phenomena They can't provide scientific evidence for the Big Bang, that kind of stuff. But likewise, I think that the scientific method describe certain foundational aspects of reality and instead presuppose them. I would of course encourage people to recognize there's like lots of room to manoeuver here. And I think that's one of the things that I'm trying to do. And like it kind of splits people. especially when I talk about either consciousness or I talk about the nature of science, it splits people. There's kind of three responses to the science stuff Some people go, That's a load of nonsense. Of course science explains things. And then I have to spend a bit of time really drilling down what they mean by explain in the Fenmann sense O people say, this is really interesting. Yeah, cool, I'd never thought about it that way. That's great. That's exciting. And some people sort of say, Yeah, science doesn't explain in that sense, like description is the same thing as expected. They just sort of say it's like trivially true It's not a very profound observation, but it has sort of some profound implications If it is true that science only describes, then As long as you have an explanatory question left, it's one that science is not going to be able to answer. So I' woulddort of encourage people to at least explore that thought Totally fine to have confidence in your conclusions Recognize it's about the method optimism about the progress of science because of what it's done in the past. which is great. be very precise about exactly what it's done in the past might therefore mimic in the future. and answering foundational metaphysical questions about the nature of matter why it exists in the first place, that kind of stuff. I just don't think it's an appropriate tool. And people will be thinking in their heads, but hold on, what about like, you know there are theories of there, What about like string theory? What about I'm telling you that if you investigate these closely enough, you will realize that these are proposed descriptions of the nature of reality. descriptions of what's going on They don't answer the why question. and I think you're left with two options. One is to say the Y question is bogus. Some people think that, and that's fair. Richard Dawkins has said, like if you ask a question like what is the colour of jealousy makes grammatical sense, but it's a meaningless question. and the why question might be the same. Why do things exist If that's the case, maybe there is no why, mayaybe there are only descriptions. In that case, I would slightly alter my thesis to say everything is maybe philosophy is description, right? When a Christian says that God is a trinity, they're just describing the nature of God, right? They're not explaining why he's a trinity. Fair enough They would not do so in mathematical You can't run the ontological argument for G existence as a series of mathematical equations It's just a different kind of language that's being used I would just say that the scientific language will not describe the things which some other philosophical languages can describe, and that's not a problem That's great. It's actually not that profound. Yeah. so many scientists just are like, yeah, I mean you could call it like functionalism or descriptivism about science that what's going on is we're just describing reality. And that's great and it's really useful But I' encourage people to just reflect on what that means and what it do to their confidence that science will answer these foundational questions. Yeah. Ive started talking about the origin of the universe because it's helpful when thinking about like Newton and Einstein to get across what I'm saying about science But really, when you ask about what my worldview is, the reason I would bring that up is to talk about consciousness and in a similar way say that science will not explain or at least tell us the nature of consciousness. For me, consciousness is the most foundational like mystery It's probably the foundational fact of reality It's the kind of thing science can't because science Science sort of describes relations between things. Science uses the language of mathematics quantifying Consciousness is a quality 's qualitative. It's not the kind of thing that science can talk about I did a panel notot long ago. that was hosted by Bran Cox. It was with some neuroscientists, One of whom was Anal Seth, a good friend of mine And the other two whose names I' forgotten, I'd only met them that one time And they invited me because there was a show called a questuestion of Science. And they did all of these episodes and different scientific topics, and they did one on consonsciousness. And I think they wanted somebody who like wasn't guess like a neuroscientist, more like a philoshical perspective. And I remember thinking, okay, sure, I'll do this. I'm very grateful to be here if you really think that I'm an appropriate person And I thought, well, what I can do is I can come along and I can talk about some philosophical perspectives. I can talk about pansychism, I can talk about other traditions and stuff. and I remember before we started Brianwell looked at the questions. that had been submitted by the audience and was kind of wanting to get rid of some of them becauseuse he was like, well, you know, like, This stuff about like pan psychism and whatnot, I don't think we should really be spending any time on this kind of nonsense and I was it was really awkward for me because I suddenly had to be like, o, that's actually a kind of what I'm here to do. We had this sort of slightly awkward conversation where I was a bit like Well, you know, I'm probably going to mention it. like, yeah, yeah I mean, it's good good to atast you know, hear the view I supp kind of that kind of thing And then the show started and I love these guys, you know, and they're obviously geniuses and I know nothing about neuros well, nothing, but you know I'm not a neuroscientist, but it struck me. If you watch the first bit of this, the first question is what do we think consciousness is? It's very difficult to define I think it's impossible to precisely define but a famous definition was given by Thomas Nagel in the seventies To be conscious means there's something it is like to be you there's something it is like to be This thing, therefore, it's conscious. It's like an inward sense of subjectivity And we went around the panel and everyone agreed. Everyone was like, yeah, yeah, that's a great definition. I agree with that. That's fair en And the first question came Can we see consciousness in the brain Great question And one by one Each of the neuroscientists said some really interesting things I felt just hadn't answered the question. Annna actually said at one point, you know, we can kind of put this question of like consciousness like to the side or on the shelf or something like that. And we can talk about like the brain activity that's going on when the conscious experience happens. and There was someone else who was talking about how when people have like hallucinations It's like Although to them they feel as real as actual sight, different brain activity is happening when they I think they've see something se when they did That's really interest. That's great. this is all really interesting stuff about neuroscience. But it got around to me and I turned to the question and I was like, I think the answer is no And I think what we've just heard has kind of proved that Because what you're doing is you're talking about brain chemistry, you're talking about neurons, you're talking about the neural correlates of consciousness. you're not talking about consciousness itself And I remember sitting there thinking, sort of quite strange to A lot of the sort of running thread throughout this one, I said, but what about the nature of what consciousness actually is? What about the explanation of like why we're conscious There's sometimes this feeling of like, Well, that's not really really a legitimate question. Yeah. It's enough to just describe the neural correlus. It's enough to just describe the brain activity. And I'm like, that's f en. If if that's what you think. If you don't think that's an interesting question, then fine. But then why are we here at an event called What is Consciousness It would sort of be like We were to an event that was like talking about And somebody asked about why the offs side rule exists. And somebody started talking about how like, well, you know, it's a bit like in basketball, we this h, or iss it bit like in cricket or it's a bit like. And then I said, but hold on, I want to talk about like actually football. Yeah eople might think I'm being a little unfair. I'd encourage just watch it themselves. I don't mean to disparage these people. as I say, they are geniuses and they do very important work But I think it's quite clear to me When we're talking about what consciousness is, We're just not talking about the same thing. Yeah. I'm talking about the experience. I'm talking about the redness of red. I'm talking about like the feeling of cold on your skin I'm not talking about a neuron firing. and I don't think those are the same things. So the common view amongst materialists is that experperiences are just the same thing as brain activity. And I understand that thought They can't literally be the same thing. I'll tell you why. There's a law. It's called Leibnitz's laaw which says that if two things are identical, they share precisely the same properties and Y are identical, that is they are the same thing All of the properties of x are shared by Y You can't say that two things are the same And I don't mean the same kind of thing. I mean literally the same thing. One of them is red and one of them is blue O one of them is five sided and one of them is two sided. That would mean that they're different things. Even spatial location They have all the same properties except this one's in China and this one's in France That means they're not identical. Yeah. Let's think about content of your mental experience, right? You can imagine a triangle in your head I'm told that the triangle that I can literally see in my head right now. is the same thing the same thing as some neuron tiring I don't think, because they don't the same properties The triangle has three sides That's a fact about the triangle my head The neurons firing. correlate with my experience with that triangle don't have three sides, meaning that you've got two sort of things with different sets of properties, meaning they can't literally be identical. Maybe one causes the other Maybe one emerges from the other. Maybe. that's fine We're not saying anything too crazy at the moment The idea that they are literally the same thing I think just doesn't make much sense noring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness. I'm Sique O'Neill and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about ZPbound to Zipotine. The first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity. Zbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA TZbound is approved as a two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection. Zbound contains trizepppetide and should not be used with other trizepetide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zbound is safe and effective for use in children Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had Medary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop step bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Zbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems Talk to your doctor. call one eight hundred five four five five nine sevenenty nine or visit zepbound. liily. com Your first sip should do more than simply start the day. Choose Vital Proteins Marine Collagen Peptize, sourced from Wild Cught Cod. With collollagen peepptes to help support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. It's a simple way to add daily support to what you're already enjoying. So your upgraded routine supports you right back. Vital Proteins. Stay vital. visit vitalroteins dot com to get started. These statements have not been evaluated ood and drug admistration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat cure or prevent any disease Refresh your yard this summer with Fourth of July savings from the Home Depot. Choose your power starting atar ninety nine dollars with tools from trusted names like Riyobi and Milwaukee. From backyard get togetethers to end of summer upgrades, Fourth of July savings on Cordless toools deliver the power and mobility to keep up with every job without slowing you down Power on the Go is here and summer projects are easier than ever with the Home Depot. while supplies last, S Store onnline for details with everything you just mentioned How do you then explain What is a good life to a ten year old I think one of the reasons why I wouldn't have a child at the moment is because I don't know how to answer that question Loved D answer, Yeahah. It's a very serious question. If you don't have an idea of what makes the good life then it's going to be very difficult to raise a child I mean people say that when you choose your life partner who's going to be the other parent to your child, So the mother or father of your child, depending on who you are. One of the most important things is that you're aligned on core values and stuff. Why? Because when it comes to raising children, you'll have to have the same idea of what a good life is, right So in the same way why you might not want to get married and have children with someone with whom you haven't aligned your fundamental values, alm sort of I'm not married to myself in that way because there's too much internal complelicx, I sort of disagree with myself too much to have a good answer to that question. But also I'm not confident that I ever will. And so I think ultimately what people typically say is either they have a particular worldview and they say, Well, son, the good life is to do what God commands And that's kind of fair enough as well, because that still leaves room for the kid to go and work out who is God and what does God command, right? It's still actually quite broad But I think if I was forced to say something I would ask what they mean by good You know, I'm not sure if this is the kid asking me Good is a difficult thing to unpack, you know, There's morally good or there's good in the sense that this is a good table because it holds things up. And some people think that's the same thing. I think there are probably indicators of of a good life that include like Contentment and calm and lack of stress and that kind of stuff confidence in the decisions that you've made. But I find it very difficult question to answer Do you find that the way you think about life and the world stops you from living practically or can or how do you balance the two? How do you allow yourself to be someone who because that's what I was trying to get at earlier is that When you have even somewhat of a false conviction in your belief, whatever that may be, life somewhat is easier to live because you just get on with it And I consider myself to be someone who's who lives more in the middle and thinks things through too. But I realize that that comes with a lot of uncertainty in the sense that you could totally have a one eight spin moment in your life because you're like, oh, wait a minute, I kind of believe stterin, that's kind of not. Now I prefer living like that because I think it leads to new learning and curiosity and change and transformation, which I think are actually better than just pretending to agree with something But I guess, where does your philosophy fail you in practical life I think that most people don't live strictly according to philosophical principles I think they develop philosophical principles based on how they live. A agreree I think it's kind the other way. that. Yeah like that. And I think that the best Ludrig Wickgenstein. in his tracked artists which is like a sort of very sort of mathematical, quite short work has this introduction. And the first words he writes are may only be of use. people who already agree with its contents And I think that's so fair enough. This might seem like a weird thing to say in response to your question, but like I don't think people just read like a philosophy and become convinced by it I think they hear somebody put something they already kind of think in the right words and they go, yes I like that Yeah That's what that's what I think. whichich is why I think people are sometimes a little bit confused. if they want to get into philosophy They look up the hundred best philosophers and they think, oK, let's go and learn about it. And just out of the blue It says, o, you should go and read like Jean Pulatre Okay, so they take it off and they read it and they're like I don't really get this, you know? this doesn't make much sense to me. They read Spinoza and they're like, what are you talking about? It's bit mathy, I don't really understand, right And it's because that's not how philosophy is supposed to be done. People sometimes ask me, Where would you recommend I start? Ifave you' got any recommendations for like how to get into philosophy? and my advice is always very simple justust read. whatever you've heard of. And the reason for that is because if you've heard of someone, it means you've been in contexts where they have come up Like if you listen to loads of Jordan Peterson You'll have heard him talk about Nietzsch Now you might never read Netsche. the fact that you are so attracted to Peterson and the fact that he's so attract to Nietzsche means's likely if you read Nietzsche you're going to find something that you like in there, right? Likewise, if you listen to Christian apologists on YouTu you might have heard them talk about The Church fathers or Augustine, or people like this. in which case, just read that. Be there's a reason why you' attracted to the people who are attracted to those bits of content, right? Because to some degree, you can read a philosophy and go, that's an interesting argument that makes sense. But you're not going to read it and it sort of wash over you with this wave of conviction. I think unless you've already got one foot in that worldview And it's just somebody who has finally put into words what you were thinking this whole time. And so I think that we're very intuitive creatures, and I think that our philosophizing often gets in the way I think that we act according to our intuition and our emotional impulses all the time, and then we rationalize them after the fact And then we debate about who was right and wrong. And there's so much to be said about this For example Really important branch of philosoph What is right, what is wrong. You've got meta ethics, which is like defining what goodness is. You've got practical ethics, which is like particular case like studies. what do we do in the case of abortion, euthanasia, that kind of stuff And if you look at how people do ethics, it's extremely interesting They'll come up with a theory. say utilitarianism, right thing to do is to bring about the least suffering for the least number, or the most pleasure for the most people Fest number, I should say And Someone says, okay, that sounds And then how would you test that theory Think of it scenario, o. okay, but hold on What if What if there was a a healthy person who walks into a hospital and there were five people who needed organ transplants kill that innocent person, steal their organs And most people go, no, no, no, that would be wrong Okay, then we need to go back and revise our theory. Hold on, why I thought the whole point of having an ethical theory was to tell us rightight and wrong are. But now you're saying if you don't like the conclusion You just go back and edit the theory What's going on there? It's because we already have intuitions the outcome. And we have certain intuitions about the input It's not as simple as like we're going rationally work out what the standard of ethics is, and then that will tell us what to do. It's like we're going come up with a kind of theory that captures how we already behave And if it doesn't capture how we already behave, then we're going to edit it slightly. And so the process of metaethics or practical ethics, coming up with these theories is in many cases actually just working out what we already believe, but doing it precisely. You know, most people care about animals They love animals, but then they pay for factory farming And you could have a discussion about this and you could say, well, actually, you know I'm not sure. So their theory might be, I think you should not cause unnecessary harm. And then you say, yeah, but you're harming animals in factatterory farms. they go about, oh okay, mayaybe then we shouldn't and they'll go and edit theory Because what you're doing is you're precisely working what you already believe. Well you're protecting your worldview. You're allowed to have your versions you. But it's not just a c, you're not just like protecting it defensively. You're just like, no, this is what I believe. and so I'm going to edit theory. John Rowuls, the political philosopher, had this concept of the reflective equilibrium So he thought that what happened. You can sort of imagine this like machine, right And we have inputs, which are our theories about what's right and wrong And those theories give us outputs So we've input theory which sounds plausible. We should minimize suffering And it giv us an output Well, then you should kill everyone instantly And actually don't hold on, that's not quite right. So then you sort of you adapt the In iss like, okay, we actually need to minimize suffering. without killing people or also you know have some kind of pleasure and then it fits out other outcomes and you sort of got this back and forth and the machine in the middle like, know, mixes it all up and gives you the output And Rules kind of says that the way this works If you com it from like both sides You've got intuitive outcomes and you've got intuitive theoretical suggestions, and you sort of do this back and forth, this tug of warall between them until they kind of balance out a it and you get this reflective equilibrium. and that that's what we're doing when we're coming up with theories. It is never as simple as somebody like writing a book and saying,, I'm going to prove to you from first principles Aortion is wrong. specifically from the eighth week. That's never going to happen ever. They're going to rely on intuitions that you already have people and the worth of humans and bodily autonomy and they're going to convince you that way. So If you become really learned in the traditions of philosophy, that can be really interesting. But you'll notice that a lot of philosophers can talk about these big ideas with absolutely no personal investment in them They'd be like, o, you know, so Nietzsche thought that God was dead and that this was a great tragedy. And they're sort of talking it as this historical aspect. They've got zero personal sort of input in there. And so they're obviously not going to use that to guide their life in any way. And if they did, it would just lead to confusion. There's like a skit I saw once, I think, like someone's on an airplane and they've dying and you know, they're like is there a doctor on board? And someone shows up and says, I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor of philosophy And they're like,, well, what should we do? We need to saave this man? And it's like, Well, you know the utilitarian would say that we should take resources from other people, But then the deontologists would say that that would upset their rights. And then well, if you're Christian, maybe we should and then they just die Because you're spending too much time sort of going back and forth. I don't think that's how people actually behave. And I think there's some There's some like neurological evidence for this to do with the two hemispheres of your brain, which is another thing I'm fascinated by. I think the most significant fact, perhaps in the world is that your brain is divided into two hemispheres. Why do you think that's the most significant fact in the world? Because if you are essentially your bra I don't think consciousness is the same thing as the brain, but they're clearly connected, right? And the thing that A at least gives you selfood I don't think it produces consciousness just to be crystal clear. but I think selfood, the thing that gives you your unified sense of self, is essentially your brain. the rest of your sort of neural system And the fact that everywhere we look, every neural system we find, there's some kind of asymmetrical division in the brain. there's some evolutionarily strong reason Ke two separate hemispheres has to be super significant That's like the nature of you, right? That's your nature. Your nature is fundamentally lateralized Your two hemispheres are kind of involved in different ways of thinking. It's never quite as simple as people think. I mean, Ian McGil Chris is the person to read on this In culture, it's like The right brain is creative and intuitive, and the left brain is mathy and rational. It's not as simple as that McGil Chris likes to say that the two hemispheres sort of attend to the world in different ways. The left brain is about sort of manipulation And the right brain is more like big picture, And we know that this is this the case. I mean, McGilkr's theory is that the reason this occurs is because as an organism, you need to be simultaneously looking out for like, you need to be manipulating your environment while looking out for predators at the same time. And there's some evidence to suggest that this is the case. Birds have eyes on either side of their head or lizards, which have eyes on the sides of their head are really useful because the right eye feeds the left hemisphere and the left eye feeds the right hemisphere. With us, it's complicated because they're on the front. So with animals on the side it's much easier. There's evidence of birds, for example If they're like building a nest, they will favor using their right eye. even when it makes it more difficult because the left brain is engaged in the manipulation stuff. And likewise, You know you could put a lizard in a room and put a predator and it will look at the predator with its left eye. Even if you cover up its left eye It will still try to look at it with the left eye, right? So there's some evidence to suggest this is the case And the same kind of thing is going on with us. We've got these two brains, and they kind of do different things And so have you ever come across split brain patients? This was My favorite thing to discover in history is really famous within like brain science I suppose Th two hemispheres connected by this tissue called the corpus cololossum sort of bundle of tissues There used to be this treatment for extreme cases of epilepsy corpus callalisotomy which is where the connection is severed. Epilepsy is like an electrical storm in the brain. so one way to try to minimize it was literally just to cut the two hemispheres like connected tissue And so people who'd had this operation done were known as split brain patients because the hemispheres have been disconnected. They can still communicate slightly through other means, but their main source of communication is inhibited. If you met one of these people, you wouldn't know. Perfectly normal, they'll spe to you like I'm speaking to you now. Everything's totally fine. But In experimental conditions, you can prove some really weird things. For example Speech and language communication is broadly speaking governed by the front left part of your brain Left hemisphere. Remember the left hemisphere controls like the right hand side of your body and the right hemisphere control the left hand side of your body So with humans because our eyes are on the front A wr visual field goes to the left brain and our left visual field goes to the right brain. So in a split brain patient, they look at a screen. You can watch this experiment on YouTube by the way. They're looking at a screen And on the right hand side of the screen, it' flash a word. so it goes to their left hemisphere And it will say umbrella and they'll say, umbrella Cair Then they'll flash a word on the left hand side of the screen so just the rightmisphere and it will say cowboy hat. And they'll say I didn't see anything didn't say anything I't we talking about And then the experimenter gives them a pencil in their left hand and tells them to draw something. and they draw a cowboy hat. the right hemisphere S it So the left hand can draw it. But if you ask them, they'll say that they didn't see it. Wow. Because the left hemisphere, which controls speechro that's a bit of an oversimplification, but broadly speaking, didn't see it, and so they can't. tell you that they saw it. So they saw it, and they didn't see it at the same time So fascinating, right Mans you kind of got these two brains that are both doing different things. And I think the most significant experiment of this kind is where and bear in mind, these people are agreeing, and thankfully so, they've already been through a traumatic experience and now they're agreeing to do these experiments They're waiting instructions, right So you can flash an instruction to the right hemisphere of the brain. The instruction will say something like, Get up and walk over to the window So the patient stands up and they walk over to the window And then the instructor says, Why did you just do that? And you know what they say? It would be weird enough if they said, I don't know, right? But they don't. They make something up and they believe it confabulation, right? Like they say something like Oh, u I was getting a bit warm and I just wanted some fresh air. We know that's not why they did But their left brain. has convinced them That is why they did it Now the reason I'm talking about all of this is because this has given rise to the idea that the left brain is the so called interpreter The right brain kind of intuitively does stuff and then the left brain retrospectively rationalizes and justifies that behaviour. In split brain patients, you can prove it experimentally. But the idea is that in healthy brains you couldn't prove it, but the same thing might be going on. So you know when you see someone who like They're arguing with a taxi driver And you're like, Wh why are you shouting at that guy And they're like, Because, you know, he didn't give me my change. And you're like, well Actually, the reason you're shouting at him is because your dog died yesterday That's the real reason of shouting at him We know that this kind of thing happens all the time, but I think it happens like literally all the time. I think like so much of our decision making, which just intuitively move throughout the world. and then our left brain interprets what we've done and rationalizes it after the fact. And I think that so much of our philosophizing like this is very like left brain dominant. And Ian McGilchris says that one of the problems that we face as a sort of society is that we've become too left brain dominant in all thinking Everything is sort of rationalized and discrete It sort of abstracted and none of it is intuitive, none of it is flux, none of it is continuous That is the nature of reality. So Imigagora's first book was called The Master in his emmissary The master and his emissary And the idea is that the right brain does stuff and the left brain is the emissary, but there's there's some kind of myth or story where an emissary thinks that he can do the job of the master, so he kills the master and then ends up doing a terrible job. And he kind of thinks that's what's happened with our left brain the reason I brought that up is because when you ask like How do you sort of navigate the world not having a certain philosophy. And I think we all navigate the world extremely intuitively and that when we come up with reasons and explanations for our behaviourors, a lot of the time there' are like post hoc rationalizations without us even realizing it It also has profound implications for free will, of course, because we think You know why you performed a particular action. But is that just because your brain has convinced you that's why you did it but it's not the real reason At the very least, whatever the reason is, it's something that brain might not be able to communicate because it might be a very right brain kind of thing. Yeah, these split brain patients. I mean, I don't know if you agree. I think that it's one of the most significant facts in the world because also it might interest you, if you're interested in the Indian traditions that we were talking about earlier concept of the self Once you have experimental evidence, an individual self can both see something and not see it at the same time I think that has profound implications for the idea of the unity of personhood How many people are there there If you want to say there's only one person, you have to admit a literal contradiction true and false that they saw it which you can't do That has to be like a part of them which saw it. At the very least, you have to say part of them saw it important partment Imediately at the very least what you've done is you've said that the self can be split into parts That's hugely profound becausecause if Y left brain and your right brain can have independent sort of centers of awareness. and yet somehow are also part of this one connective thing I think that has some profound implications for the fact that I've got a brain and you've got a brain There are great many philosophical traditions who think that we're all sort of part of one great big thing It at least opens the door to all kinds of interesting. And it's sort of like when I tell people this, if they haven't heard about split brain patients, they're sort of like what Really? I'm like Yeah, like this stuff is way more complicated and way more weird And I think a lot of people realize Is there anything that we can do to activate our right brain more? That's a question for Ian McGilrist, but I mean, I don't know, but I would guess that like tuning in to the way that the right brain is supposed to attend to the world and read McGildgrrist on this. And just try to tune into that part of yourself.ust try to recognize There is a part of reality that consists in that kind of stuff that escapes the sort of hyper rationalization of left brain ways of thinking. And I think a lot of that comes through like people are said to be a bit more left brained or a bit more right brained and In culture that tends to manifest as like, if you're right brained you like sort of music and art and poetry. Left handedness was associated with creativity for a long time. although that would be a quite fun fact. I think that's actually not true, that's not connected in that way. But like culturally we have these sort of associations. and I think that they don't give you at all a very good picture of what's actually happening with the brain But I think it can be a sort of good way of thinking about the kinds of practices and ways of thinking that you might want to engage with to stop being so hyper rational. and also pay attention when you are convinced that you know why you're doing something and really think about what might be going into it. It's literally what I said at the beginning of this conversation when I said, you know, why are you an atheist? It's because the contingency argument for God's existence is unsound Hm It' because my parents divorced when I was nine The first of those is a very left brain answer. The second of those is a very right brain answer And so if you're having an argum with your wife, you know, CS Lewis in the screw tape letters, which is a wonderful little novel where there's this like demonic undersecretary, like there's sort of a demonic civil service and this demon has been tasked with a particular human who he's trying to make into an atheist And one of the instructions that he has is like When person has an argument with his wife convince him that they're arguing about the dishes when they're not really. So he's going to come home and he's going to say, you know His wife is going to say you' do theishes today, and he's going to go for goodnessake I've had a long day at work and she's gonna to go, Yeahah, but you never do the bloody and he's gonna really you're to raise your voice me right now because I didn't do the dishes this morning ' it's not about the dishes. She's not saying you didn't do the dishes. She's saying, I feel like you don't pull your weight around the house and you don'tisten to me and I don't feel hurt. Now this is very sort of like self helpy type stuff, you know, you sit on podcasts like this and you sort of go like, you know, and like really you need to listen to your. But I think very specifically, We are literally becoming convinced L we know why we are acting and behaving in particular ways when we're not because our left brain is rationalizing things for us So just take a step back, think a bit more intuitively about what's going on in a very sort of non rational, abstracted kind of way. Don't try to think about this individual case and go, okay, let's trace the logic. justust like step back and like feel for a minute. you know, like reintegrate feeling into your life. That's probably a helpful starting point Inoring, gasping for air during sleep, dayaytime sleepiness. I'm Shiquile O'Neill and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. As a doctor about ZP bound to zipatye, The first Soni FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity TZzbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zbound is approved as a two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection. Zbound contains trizepetide and should not be used with other trizepotide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines It is not known if ZPBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take up allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medulary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop step bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Zet bound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems Talk to your doctor. callall one eight hundred five four five five nine seven nine or visit zbound. liily. com Your routine should be anything but vanilla, but your ready to go wellness can be. Elevate daily wellness with vital proteins advanced collllagen plus cholostrum and prebiotic fiber. This three in one blend supports radiant skin, gut health and immune system wellness, designed to mix into room temperature or cold liquids. so your inner harmony works with your outer wellness. Vital Proteins. Stay vital. Visit vitalroteins dot com and get started. These statements have not been evaluated the drg administration Products are not intended to diagnose, treat cure or prevent any disease. Refresh your yard this summer with Fourth of July savings from the Home Depot. Choose your power starting at ninety nine dollars with tools from trusted names like Riyobi and Milwaukee. From backyard get togetethers to end of summer upgrades, Fourth of July savings on Cordless Tools deliver the power and mobility to keep up with every job without slowing you down Power on the Go is here and summer projects are easier than ever with the Home Depot. while supplies last, E Store onnline for details Alex, thank you so much. What a joy talking to you. I feel like I've totally had my mind expanded today and stretched in so many different directions. Yeah, both sides. I wanted to end with you on what we do on the show called the Final five, but I've kind of edited it for you because I felt there are a few more questions. I wanted to sneake in there. So my end up being a final ten. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. Sure. Okay.. And so Alex O'Connor, these are your final ten. only made for you. brought to you by State Farm. What's the hardest question you've ever asked yourself? What is consciousness If you're wrong about everything you believe, which belief would hurt most that my friends and family love me G answer What do you think is the most dangerous idea people believe without questioning we can have certainty the will creator of the universe and that it's engaged in peculiarities of human affairs and human political affairs Is that one sentence? 's can's. You got it all out in one breath. That can's What do you think people are most afraid to admit about life? that it comes to an end I wanted to talk to you about that as a final theme. Why does death feel so unnatural? You've talked about consciousness. What have you learned about death Well, there are a few answers to. You say said, whyy does death feel so unnatural? which is a weird way of putting it. But I think like You think it's weird why For many people, death is part of nature Interesting to hear you say unnatural because there are philosophical traditions. like if you're someone who believes that life exists after death. You'll either believe that because you think that we're going to like heaven. and this mortal realm is sort of a purgatory realm of sorts Or maybe you think that We're all made of consciousness and we're going sort of reintegrate into Brahman, you know Byither way would mean that our true nature is Bm. for one of a better term right now and that divided physical biological selves that we currently inhabit are not our real selves, right? This is one of the biggest teachings of advice Vidanta is that you're Your self is an illusion. There is one self the Atman, it's one on seelf and the Aman is the same thing as Brahman. There's just one great big thing. such that The thing that comes to an end when you die is not yourself O rather it's the illusion of yourself, but it's not the self, the self persist, the self is ernal. It's another sort huge theme of the Hindu scriptures And so to hear you describe death as unnatural, is's kind of interesting because these people would say that's because it's not natural becausecause your true nature is eternal. The self is eternal and what you're calling yourself is actually unnatural and that's the thing that will come to an end. So some people might answer that. For me Death is terrifying and it can be terrifing for two reasons. One is that you think it's lights off and everything comes to an end The other is that you think there is something after death and it's bad Right? People are genuinely terrified as concepts of hell divine torment for the behaviours that they engaged in while they were alive And a lot of that comes from like religious upbringings in particular doctrines about the nature of hell, which I think are very biblical, say the least So there'sort of two flavors of fear there O the hell stuff, it requires essentially a methysical investigation into the nature of God and whether that God would allow suffering for finite crimes But with the lights off kind of thing, which I think more people are kind of freaked out by. some people say, Oh, but you know, it's like before I was born, you know? I was dead for thousands of years before I was born and it never bothered me I fact that helps some people at least makes you realize that you're not going to experience it. You know, if the lights were to go off An Epicurus famously said, you know, like if like when is death bad? It can't be bad now because I'm not dead And it can't be bad for me when I'm dead because there's no me. So there's no point at which it can be true. Like Epicurus kind of wants to say If something is true There has to be a time at which it's true. There has to be some time at which this fact is true. So if the fact is death is bad for me, my death is bad for me, when is that fact true can't true, because I'm not dead, can't tr later because there's me. And people hear that and they go very clever But't really didn't really do much, right? Because again, that's a very leftful right way thing they're very clever, but I'm still kind of concerned, right? Yeah. 'z of my convictions about the nature of consciousness I'm at least agnostic enough about experiences by which I mean like experiences with an apostrophe, experiences connection to physicality I'm aggnostic enough about that that I'm kind of not super worried about the death of my physical body. I have no idea what's going to happen I do know that if I If I do die and it all just sort of shuts off, then I won't be around to worry about it And I'm only around to worry about it now. But you know, I think about it like everybody does in some way that I can't quite explain, and it's a reason why I wouldn't really talk about it except to sort of hint at it in a situation like this is to say that These investigations into the nature of consciousness and the nature of the brain and split brain and stuff in some way I can't quite describe has consoled me a little bit about that one day my physical brain is going to like end H because I don't know if that's quite the same thing as what I am exactly. you know? Well, it is the same thing as what I am as a self and I am worried about the self coming to an end, but I guess one thing about it as well is that like The thing that's scary about death is not the secession biological funct Right. You could have a biological machine that has no consciousness N not worried about death The thing that Death really. P peopleople think about death in terms of the end of life, but really death is kind of the end of consciousness. That's what people are scared about Maybe consciousness has to manifest physically, in which case, when you die Consciousness sort of ends And that's a bad thing, right What's really ending there is not