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Parker Interviews Curt Jaimungal on the Simulation Hypothesis, God, and Authenticity
February 1, 2024
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Last week, Parker set a case, interviewed me for his philosophy YouTube channel called Parker Pensies. The subjects were on the folly of the simulation hypothesis, what it means to be authentic, God, and of course, what a theory of everything is and isn't. Parker asks fantastic questions, listen to it here and if you enjoy that, then check out his channel which is linked in the description.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Parker's Penses. I'm your host, Parker Seticase. And this is a podcast where we explore all the deepest ideas in philosophy, theology, nature and life. I love thinking about cool stuff. So come think with me. This episode is a very, very special one. I have with me Kurt Jaimungal from the YouTube channel Theories of Everything. Kurt is awesome. I met him at MindFest 2023. And like I say in the episode, I used to really, really envy him. And so I wouldn't listen to his stuff because I was petty.
And I got over that, started listening to his channel and realized this dude's a master and he has some of the most amazing conversations about fundamental reality, about theories of everything, about UFOs and UAPs and everything. He talks about philosophy, theology, nature and life, just like I do. He covers it from more of a theoretical physicist perspective, whereas I cover
this stuff from analytic philosophy and analytic theology. So it was really fun having this conversation with him where we talk about the same things from different perspectives. In this conversation, Kurt gives us a definition of a theory of everything. What does that term mean? He lays it out for us. We also talk about Weltanschauens or worldviews or world and life views. We talk a little bit about the authorial analogy for the God-world relation.
We talk about the simulation hypothesis, surprise, surprise, as well as the nature of human persons and much, much more. So make sure you watch the full video to hear all the craziness that we get into a note about the ending. It is pretty abrupt. And that's because Kurt and I both went over the time that we allotted for this conversation. We're having a really good time. So hopefully this is just part one of part two or part 10. So make sure you go over to theories of everything and let them know that you like this conversation.
Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me man. Yeah, and it's been so we met like a year ago at mind fest 2022 the inaugural one it was awesome and
2020-23. Dude, that's right. It's 24 now. My goodness. Holy cow. Yeah. Well, 23 was the year of chat GPT. That's right. So it was that year. We'll all remember. Yeah, that's wild. Even though I just forgot it. But it's so it's so good to have you on here, man. I love what you're doing. And we met we met at MindFest and I didn't know who you were. And I remembered later because I'd seen your stuff a bunch recommended to me. And I was
a podcast or for a year or two, maybe two and a half years at that point. And I remember seeing your stuff initially and being really jealous of you. And so I didn't watch any of your stuff because I was like, dude, no way I want to have these people on. And so then I saw you in person and then I put it together after we had talked and I was like, dude, what a dummy I am for for letting my jealousy get in the way of getting good content. So after that, I just binged a bunch of your stuff. And I should say for the audience, I already did in the intro, but
Kurt's got an amazing YouTube channel called Theories of Everything with Kurt Dimungo and it's insane. It's so good. The range of topics you cover while still talking about theories of everything is insane. Jealousy is my primary motivator so I can 100% align myself with that. I understand it. That's good to know. I'm not alone here. Kurt, my audience are many
Many in my audience are interested in philosophy of religion. Others are just straight up philosophy, secular philosophy or Christian philosophy, whatever. I've been catching this idea of theories of everything from the physics folks and the theoretical physics folks. And I haven't heard a lot of my philosophy friends talking about it. So I wanted to introduce some of them to it or just show those who are familiar with it. Hey, look, this is a really big topic that you should be talking about because it's an abstract idea.
That touches so many different sub-disciplines. Right off the bat, can you explain, like, what is a theory of everything? Is it really supposed to encompass everything, like virtue, love, morality, or is it more limited in scope to harmonizing quantum mechanics in, you know, macro physics type stuff?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, the term theories of everything or theory of everything is a tongue-in-cheek term because physicists think that everything comes back to physics I used to say this as well up until just a couple years ago that Hey, even the political situation is the way that it is because if you reduce it it becomes down to people or game theory and if you reduce that it becomes neurology if you reduce that it becomes
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It is something that we that physicists like to think because it inflates their, their ego, their, their insecure ego, their fragile. So good. So theories of a theory of everything is something that means in physics means how do you combine or how do you in one framework explain or unify or have as two different facets, general, general relativity, which is the dynamic curvature of space and time or space time, sorry, and then
Quantum field theory or or the standard model, actually. So the theory of the small is what people say. It's not actually quantum mechanics, because you have to incorporate relativity. So it has to be quantum field theory. And it's not just any quantum field theory has to be the one that is the standard model, because there are several different sorts of quantum field theories. Dude, I'm writing all this down. This is so good. That's that's a really helpful clarification. Actually, I really appreciate that.
You mentioned Velton Chang, and I'm notorious for mispronouncing words on here. I call it Parker's Pencies instead of Pensees. I know I like it. So I'm probably saying Velton Chang wrong. But in my philosophy studies, Velton Chang is a worldview and you're supposed to... it's debated whether that's conceptual, whether it also incorporates like heart motives and stuff like that. And it's a general theory of everything.
Not in the physics sense of the world. So I've heard you mentioned Belton Chong yourself. What's the difference between a theory of everything and a Belton Chong? And is it the same thing for some of those physicists that we were mentioning earlier?
I had no idea that it's a term used in the philosophical literature or the circles of philosophy, even colloquially. It's just something that I like words and it was an interesting word that actually to the Germans literally means worldview, but the way that I use it is to mean
It's a framework through which one interprets the world that's unexampled or bespoke. So it's particular to a person because some people could say, well, what about the Christian Weltanschauung? OK, you can consider that a Weltanschauung. It's certainly a theory or certainly a worldview. But I am more interested in someone like Ian McGilchrist who has arrived at theirs through their own research and through also looking at other religions, comparative analysis. Yeah.
And that if you were to pose a question like this, if I ask Ian McGill, Chris, why is this three inches or two and a half or whatever it is? Why is that? By the way, for the people listening, I am referring to some lip balm just so he's a pro. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Why is this this color or this length or whatever it may be?
He would have an answer. He would be like, because the left brain, when it views the world, it wants to use it through utility in his grasp. I can't come up with it. I'm not Ian McGilchrist. But the point is that he would have an answer to almost any question that you throw at him. And there are many, there are quite maybe 40 people that I've catalogued that are like this. Those I call Weltanschauungs. So it's their way of interpreting
It's their way of making sense of the world in a cohesive framework that also informs their action, and generally speaking, their world view and their actions are consistent as well. Most often, it doesn't have anything to do with physics, so John Vervecky has a Veltan show. Almost all of his thoughts come down to something called relevance realization. It's a joke that I always say to him. Every answer is relevance realization.
Yeah, um, Kurtz, well, one thing I'm,
I knew coming in that you're a very thoughtful guy and I would have to be comfortable with some silence that I love filling. I'm like a silence filler. I'm like, and I'm from Chicago and we talk really Chicago land and we talk. So I am, uh, I'm really excited for this can be a practice, uh, for, and for me to be a little bit more thoughtful and be more comfortable with silence as well. So if I, if I, for the audience, if you're hearing a silence that, uh, Kurt was done speaking,
And I didn't feel it's because I'm working on it here. I'm trying to be more thoughtful. Kurt, so we used to call it a world and life view that got shortened down to worldview in philosophy of religion and in philosophy. More generally, we in philosophy of religion like it even more. But yeah, the early the early Dutch and a lot of the Germans would say world and life and life was supposed to incorporate the livability that this isn't just airy fairy. This is not just theoretical. It's theoretical and practical.
That's been one of the critiques of the Velton Chang model of viewing life is that, look, it's not practical. It's like, no, we're trying to recapture it. So it's really cool that you've taken this word as well to mean what a lot of us have been saying. Also, we love this word, Velton Chang, especially in philosophy of religion. Something that you just brought up to me that I've been chewing on for a little bit,
is thinking about a worldview versus like the worldview. So a lot of people will talk about, I'm a, I'm a Christian myself. So a lot of people say the Christian worldview. And there are certain things that if you don't believe your, it puts you outside of Christian orthodoxy. So you don't hold to the Christian worldview, I suppose. But as I chewed on it myself, and I've spoke with many, many Christians, uh, both philosophically, theologically, and just on the popular level, there,
Everyone believes so many different things about God and God's sovereignty and God's providence and what happens to you after you die and what kind of beings we are. And I think more and more I'm seeing that there is like I have a Christian worldview. So there's certain necessary sufficient conditions probably that I have to meet. I have to believe I have to affirm in order to know for my worldview to count as a Christian worldview. But mine is going to be different than everyone in my church to, you know, like we all supposed to believe the same thing. So
I really appreciate that way of viewing it. Some people will think, well, everyone has a worldview, like you said, and that may be true, but not everyone has a well thought through worldview, right? Not everyone has has chewed on these ideas. What are some of those things that? What are some of those things that make for a worldview? What are some of the necessary questions that must be that you must have an answer to, even if it's not, you know, a definitive answer?
What are some of the world view type questions that you have in mind?
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Firstly, a note on the tentativeness in my speech. It's in large part because I'm doing my best to not give you a phrase that I feel like has been echoed by someone else. And I'm just glomming onto it because I believe it sounds intellectual or interesting, but it's not actually mine. And almost every thought that comes to me is of that sort. And so I'm constantly comparing it to an internal feeling I have until there's a congruence.
So I'm attempting to be extremely measured and specific when I speak now about the the Veltan Chang, the question, sorry, the questions that that I'm trying to address. So. See, it's a bit tricky, man. It's a hazardous question to even talk about these questions. So I'll give you some example, like, OK, examples would be why are we here? Why something rather than nothing?
The largest philosophical questions, the ones that people have been wrestling with for for millennia. But I also wonder. Part of this toe project is me, I look, it's a couple of facets. So one, I'm either trying to come up with my own toe and put forward my own or number two, convincing myself that someone else already has a toe and then just believing that one or a minor alteration of that one.
The number three would be convincing myself that in practice, it's impossible for us as humans to know, so there's some unknowability to it. Or three, in principle, it doesn't even exist to convince myself of that. Or five, that it's not even worth going after the toe. And any answer to any of those, even if a toe doesn't exist or it's not worth it, that itself to me is a toe. To then sit with the question silently and say, I don't even care about this question anymore.
That in itself is some answer to me. It may be that it's an extremely simple. It may be. So here's something Tolstoy said, by the way. I'm because I'm heavily paraphrasing, but I can get you the source after the podcast. So Tolstoy said, Look, you say you care about society.
You don't care about society like you're doing all of your social good because you care about everyone. You care. You know, what is society to you? You don't know society. You know, Ben, you know, Jeff, you know, your mom, you know, your child, you don't know society. You don't know the state. You don't know the world. Don't pretend that you're doing something for the world. And then someone countered like, yeah, but but then if you abstract so much, you say, you know, God, isn't that the most abstract?
He's like, God is the most concrete. Right there, he touches someone's chest. He says, right there, that love that you feel. That's God. God is the closest thing to you. It's the opposite from abstraction. It's what you can know personally. In that regard, there's two, there's the mystic view. God is unknowable, ineffable, enigmatic, cabalistic. And then there's the one that says, no, you can have a personal relationship to God.
I don't know. Maybe it's both. Maybe there's some aspect of God that you can know right then and there like that without a distance between you. And there's also an equality of God that's always escaping you, always escaping you. You never match it. Like both can be true simultaneously. How? I don't know. There's something paradoxical. But I also think that paradoxes don't mean
So the intellectual, the rational intellectual or someone who thinks of themselves as such likes to think likes to use as a cudgel, like, hey, what does that even mean? They'll say that it like defiantly as if it's a checkmate. Whereas for me, I say that shamefully as a resignation. What does that mean? I don't know. Shoot. I need to understand more. I mean, there's that's me at my best. So I don't know. I think paradoxes are a way
of signaling, we don't know how to make sense of it, rather than it doesn't make sense. Those are those are different. So I don't know, there's a view that hey, the theory of everything, the theory of everything, if there is if there even is the what there may be, like, I'm not discounting that I'm not a subjectivist, like, so like that, but
It may be something extremely simple, simple. Wheeler said this that. Yeah, I forgot the exact quote, but it had to do with that the. Well, Wheeler and Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein's quote, I remember he said he had something called, I think they're called clarificatory remarks. I was never able to find the source of this afterward, but he said there are those aspects of things that are most hidden
But important, sorry, our most important, but hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity, almost like a water to fish. So maybe it's just right there. The theory of everything's right there, Parker. It's like right there. Yeah. Um, I love what you're talking about with God, especially pulling Tolstoy. So I did, um, I've just been collecting masters theses or masters, um, degrees because they keep giving them to me for free. So just an accident of history, but I did one in systematic theology and I wrote on
the authorial analogy for the God-world relation. And in theology, a big question is, how does God relate to the world? If he's outside of time and space, how can he interact with his creatures? How can he be that personal God that Christianity claims he is? If he's outside of time and space, and if he's not, how can he interact with us and we still have free will? Or how can he have a definite plan? All these kinds of things. There's a God-world relation and the God-world distinction. So how does he relate and how is he distinguished?
One of my supervisors, Kevin Van Hooser, is a really big deal in systematic theology world. He put forward this view that God relates the world like an author does to his play, or he calls it a theodrama. We live in a theodrama. And he says it's analogical. So it's not univocal. It's a way to speak literally about God. God is literally an author, but not univocally. So he's not literally writing on paper and pen, but he
creates by his word. And so that's a way to try and do justice to what you said about, about both being true, God being, I wouldn't say ineffable because one of my other professors has this whole big screed about ineffability. And he says, if you want to write a book on ineffability, God being ineffable, just get a blank journal, right? The, the, the, um, the title God is inevitable and then submit that because that's all you could say about God if he's ineffable.
but being incomprehensible. Maybe we can't, we can't fully comprehend God, but if God's like an author, then just like talking is on every page of his book, he's there. Those are his words, his story, the whole university being upheld by his word. And yet he's distant because unless he introduces himself to the characters, they don't know who he is. Um, and so the, and the Christian story, it's like, well, no, the, the logos, the word,
Jesus is Tom Bombadil.
Uh, it's a second chance types in heaven and goes to hell or he's in hell in hell and goes to take a bus ride, take a field trip to heaven. Basically. How does he, how does that occur? Oh, there's a bus out to do this in the others. Yeah, there's a bus and the bus takes him there and everyone ends up saying they'd rather stay in hell for various reasons, but, um, they won't let go of their certain things. He said there's even a, there's a theology colloquium in hell of people talking about like the theology stuff, because again, it's about,
It's about knowing God and not just knowing about God and stuff like that. So anyway, C.S. Lewis writes himself in to the story. He's he's the main character, which is pretty cool that he chose himself to be in hell to go to heaven and say someone else. But he's upholding the whole universe of that story while still being the main character. So the other characters can know him truly, but not fully. They don't know that he's the author of the story they live in. So that's that's that kind of theorizing.
It's systematic theology. That's what attracts me so much to your channel and the type of thinkers you talk with because a lot of theoretical physicists want to know like what is the nature of fundamental reality, even though they may not say that. I think some of them do some of them who are philosophically like who have a who prioritize philosophy. They will say those kind of words. Others. I think that's what they're getting at. But they they're like philosophy doesn't do anything. They don't know philosophers are dumb.
So I'm with you on this. This is like, I'm trying to come at it from a theological perspective, also from a philosophical one as well. But, um, I love it, man. I love what you're getting at, but I wonder how, how did you come about? I mean, dude, a big part of your life is theories of everything, exploring those things. You explore other things as well, but your whole channel is called that. How did that come about? What, what made you want, what made you think there was enough of them to like,
Base part of your life, you know, you're a big part of your life on exploring these ideas Hear that sound
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I don't recall who said this but someone said if there's if there's
If you knew how daunting of a task, if you had enough knowledge that you knew how insurmountable the task was that you're endeavoring to to accomplish, then you wouldn't have gone into it to begin with. So you have to be immature in some sense, though, even calling it theories of everything is a mark of my immaturity that I think that there is a theory of everything or that there that that is noble or that it can encompass everything.
It started from Donald Hoffman. Donald Hoffman has some claims about consciousness being fundamental. And no one was asked and he kept saying that my views are contingent on my math. Okay, so why is no one asking him about the math? He says that they're in papers. So I just read the papers and then I interviewed him and then people seem to like that. And I've always almost always been interested in theories of everything.
Like the largest puzzles that can be solved. I'm super interested in and I have fun. I have fun doing it, man. Like it's I, I find it invigorating and it's so invigorating. It bangs on almost every single cylinder. I don't ever dread work except when it comes to video editing. That's it. See you on that.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And then also when there's a podcast out, I have to tweet about it. I have to make sure. OK, did I do so in the discord? Did I do so in the subreddit? Did I email the guest and tell them that the URL is out? What else have I forgotten? OK, what about the description? OK, got to do time stamps. There's so much that goes into it that I just don't care about. Like I want to just study for the toes, study for toe, like study someone's toe or someone's theory of everything or interview someone.
I go through the exact same thing. Something that encourages me is I go back to why I started this. I started this because I had a lot of friends that I was making in my academic work who were brilliant, who I wanted more people to know about, and I would read their papers.
I'd be like, man, this is such a great paper. You spent a year, two years writing this paper for people who read this in some obscure journal. So maybe I can help expose other people to this and promote the paper. And then when it becomes like, it becomes something else, it becomes something where, yeah, I would love to make a living doing this full time becomes, I find myself wanting to promote so much and
When I go back and think, why am I doing this? Why did I start doing this? It's not that it's not just raw, pure, you know, pure intellectual endeavor. I'm sure I wanted money, but I say, hey, look, I have to do this or less people will find out about the ideas. And my, my guests were generous enough to give me their time. So I better put in my time to make sure that people find out about their ideas. That's like the only way I can do it. If I don't have that in mind, I'll sit on an episode forever. And she's like, yeah, you know, it's not, no, no, no, this guy,
Both of us are extremely fortunate that we're on YouTube because
In a sense, it's content marketing. So even though I said, yeah, we have to do all this promotion, and that's necessary for it to flourish. It's also false. Because look, when we put on YouTube, YouTube's algorithm, if the content is good enough for certain people starts to spread it and it wants to it wants eyeballs on YouTube. So hopefully, whatever we're doing is eyeball worthy. But but clearly the the the other components. Yeah. Yeah. And
I'm getting to the point. There's been a couple episodes. I won't say who they were, but I've taken them because someone sent me a book and I felt bad. And I was like, look, here's him in the book, you know, I'll have you on. And now I'm to the point where I'm like, I'm just not, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing a conversation because it won't actually, it won't do justice to the person coming on. Cause I'm not interested in talking. What's that? What do you mean?
Like someone sends you their book and you're not impressed with it and you're like, Oh, I said I was going to interview you, but I can't cause I just don't think you're that deep of a thinker. I think it's false. I'm not interested. Yes. Yeah. And can you tell me who they were off there? I could. You wouldn't know who they were. I would imagine, but, um, but yeah, I can tell you that I, I'm, I'm, I want to be kind also, you know, I don't want to be squish ball, but I'm like, look,
I don't think that your work is that good and I don't want to put this out and promote this. So I've stopped doing that. Good? Yeah. Good as in good for humanity? Good. Or good as in it's not original? If it was not original, I would not have them on. I think that'd be fine. If it were, sorry, if it were like plagiarism, plagiarism. Oh no, I mean, it's not seminal work. It's not work that would produce other work. No.
Because I think I've had people on who this was not seminal work, but it was a really good, uh, like recap or rehashing or, you know, it was, it's a, it's, it's something that maybe I didn't learn something new, but I know my audience would, and I feel really good promoting this. Um, so like the reason I wanted to have you on is because one, I think you're really interesting guy. And I love the way you think about the same questions I'm thinking about, but just from a different lens and from more like
I'm so terrible at math and you're like the math guy. So it's cool that I think we have different tools, but we're still chewing on the same ideas. I wanted to have you on, especially for my audience, because I'm like, look, you guys, philosophy does a really bad job at public teaching, at reading the public. There's a few people who are good at it. David Chalmers is very good at it. Um,
But there's not a whole bunch who are and they're like, look, I'm doing really important work. This is what I care about. And so people should be interested in this work. And I'm like, look, I am, but I'm a philosopher. I'm studying this stuff. I spent my whole life studying it. I want other people to be interested in your ideas as well. So you need to look at what is, what does the world care about and see if you can meet them halfway with the work that you're doing. So a lot of people are interested in simulation hypothesis.
Most of my academic philosophy friends are like, why are you still banging on about the simulation hypothesis? I'm like, you know, do you know anyone in computer science? Do you know anyone over in? There's like a whole cult of people who are all obsessed with it. And if you're in philosophy of religion, man, yeah, talking about the simulator. Is that God? Are we speaking univocally, analogically, all that abstruse, obscure,
philosophy of language that we use in theology. That's really important now for simulation hypothesis. So I want to have you on so I can get some cross some crossbreeding. I want them to listen to your stuff and see like, there are a lot of people talking about fundamental reality who are not philosophers. And if you're wise, you'll read their stuff and connect with them and get the conversation going.
Yeah, when it comes to the simulation hypothesis, I have plenty of writing on this. Like I write my own notes on plenty of subjects, though they're disparate. And so I wouldn't be able to pull them up, at least not cohesively right now. But by the way, David Chalmers, his gift is classification. And I think that's his secret and he doesn't even realize it.
The reason why people are drawn to him is because he just says, look, there are three classes of so-and-so phenomena. There's class A, class B, class C. I think it boils down to that, and that's actually difficult to do. Anyhow, the simulation hypothesis seems to me to be these godless people trying to find God. It's like they're developing a whole framework about why something exists, and they're also putting off the question, because why does the simulator exist? There are several premises
If you have a billiard ball set, so like a pool table and you knock one of the billiard balls,
And you let it bounce around a couple times. Yeah, you can plan that trajectory. But if you want to plan it 10 moves ahead, it turns out someone waving their arm in Wisconsin influences the billiard balls trajectory. Forget about quantum mechanics, just even so definitely with quantum mechanics, but it influences it. Okay, if you want to go somewhere out to 20, I think it's technically 17. But let's even say 20 for sure. 20 balls ball bounces around this billiard ball around this billiard table.
the position of the ball which even which side it hits on the billiard ball table the billiard table sorry depends on the position of an electron at the edge of the observable universe and that position is not even defined so to think that
What physics is doing is somehow computational. To me, it seems to be a large assumption and there's experimental bounds as to the digital nature of physics. Is space something discrete, the discreteness of space?
And yet they're making claims there. And then they would say, so there's so many claims. And then also, why isn't this heaven? That's something that I want to know. Like, it's a question that no one asks about the simulation hypothesis. If the simulation hypothesis is the case, why isn't this heaven? Okay, well, why does that matter? Why would it be heaven? Well, do you think usually the people who are of the computer scientist types who come up with this argument, do you think that being more rational leads to us being more enlightened? They generally do.
I don't, but they generally do. So you would think that this person who made this computer would be more rational than us than us. Yeah. Why don't they fall prey to the same problem of evil? So are we saying that we're then simulated by something evil? This goes, there's a deep, deep quote about this by, by Nietzsche, uh, King Midas. There's something he wrote about King Midas. Nietzsche said this and it's like, it's a quote I think about on a, on at least a weekly basis. He said,
King Midas said to this demon, or to the devil, you can even call it the devil in this case. So King Midas says to this devil, please tell us the most best and desirable thing of all. And then the devil stood there shrill and motionless and let out a laugh saying, oh, miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship,
Why do you force me to say what would be so much better for you not to hear? The best of all things would be for you to not have been born, to not be, to be nothing. And the second best would be for you to soon die. Okay, so then the question is, why isn't that wrong? Can you rationally give me an argument as to why that's not the case? Some people do think that's the case, especially people who believe in the
problem of evil and problem of suffering. This world is so horrible that if they had an on-off switch, they would press the off button because it's not worth it. This mentality is very big on Instagram. I've noticed in Instagram philosophy, it's called anti-natalism, right? But I was born without my consent and it's easy for many people to wipe just
I met someone like this at my church and he came out of Eastern Orthodoxy, but he was saying he loves his kids too much to have them. He had this woman, they were living together, they were engaged or something and they were going to get married and we ended up talking about kids and he's like, yeah, just this world's too hard. It's too like, I love them too much to let them experience this world. And I'm like, man, like,
I was studying analytic philosophy at the time. My mind was going to designators. What are you referring to if there's a non-existent child? What do you mean? Your sperm and her egg? I was getting all there instead of being a human being and trying to flesh out the sentiment behind that.
It was a really fascinating conversation, but all that to say this is a real thing that people are struggling with. But yeah, like, somehow we got to these, we got here from the assumptions of the simulation hypothesis. Sorry, I cut you off. I just wanted to throw that in that story. Oh, I know. I don't. Well, it's to speak on the simulation hypothesis and being born. That's something else that's not covered. What does it mean to be born in the simulation? Like,
How do you know when
How do you know that you can recursively do the simulation? So they say, well, look, of all the simulate, there's some argument of probability of, well, the simulation is likely to happen. And once you could simulate, you can simulate again. How do you know you can just recursively simulate? How do you know it doesn't break down at the first layer that such that the first layer can't simulate another layer, or the nth layer can't simulate an n plus one layer? Like, it's not clear to me that you could just simulate all the way down. And then another, another issue with this is, is
Oh, I've, I've, I've lost it. Well, you were mentioning, I'll give you some time to think here. Oh, yes. You got it. If you got it, if you got it, jump back in. Yeah. Why is what's simulated not considered as real? So for instance, we have a computer and it simulates something like Grand Theft Auto. And then we think, okay, well, the character is simulated. So then we think, okay, let's simulate the thoughts of the character in Grand Theft Auto. And do we say that that's less real to the CPU as the character itself?
To the CPU, it's all just bits and zeros and ones. And if we think this is all information, then what makes some information more real than some other information? That's not clear. It's not defined. At least it's not made. It's not made explicit. And so all these thoughts of we're simulated. OK, and then thus we are not real. OK, there's so many question marks that come up in my head. And these are just statements that are thrown around. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is why this is actually
I started thinking about simulation hypothesis as something to destroy because I worked in campus ministry and I meet with with college athletes and we talk about belt and chunks and we talk about some many of them are Christians who want to know what they believe and why they believe it or if they believe it they're going to college for the first time and it's like I'm on my own what do I how do I even read the Bible what do I think about it and a lot of people would
throw up the simulation hypothesis all the time. So I thought this is something I need to knock down. And then after years of thinking about it, I was like, look, this, this is a jumping off point for people who would otherwise not be interested in philosophy or, um, you know, fundamental mentality or fundamental physics or theology, people who are turned off by those words, but who are doing those things when they're considering the simulation hypothesis. So instead of me trying to steer the conversation away from it, I steer right in now and I
Hey, if we live in a computer simulation, will we have free will? What do you think? Would we be real? What, what, what's the difference between base reality particles of which this desk is made up of? And, uh, it's it and bit and, uh, you know, zeros and ones gateway philosophy. Yeah. Right. So now I see this way to lure them in. I'm trying to convince my philosopher friends who right now in philosophy, uh, the trend is public facing philosophy.
And I went from just some dummy with a podcast to someone who knows how to do public facing philosophy. It's like, yeah, I guess just now because it's a cool trend, because you have words to describe it, you want to jam your abstruse philosophy into the public's eye. But if you really want to do public facing philosophy, you'll take your your work in epistemology and you'll apply it to things like the simulation hypothesis in the ways that you were just doing and asking questions of it.
Hey, here's this hypothesis. What? How could we know that we were in a simulation? Here's some of my work. Here's something that I've done. Here's how I can add to the conversation and add to public understanding and help you think about it for yourself. So I'm like, that's this is my this is my gong. I'm just clanging this like we should be thinking you find there to be a through line between the people who believe in the simulation hypothesis and those who don't. So what I mean to say is, are those who don't
They tend to be Hindu or they tend to come from the upper States. I don't know. I'm saying, is there something that makes, is there some commonality between people who believe in it and people who don't that you've noticed? What I've noticed is kind of what you were saying earlier. It's, it's people who want to believe in Providence without God. So on the popular level in the philosophical realm, it's a really, it's actually a really fascinating question. Like,
You talk about Chalmers being good at categorization and he really is in his book Reality Plus. I thought this is just a ploy to get more people to read the book and I read the book myself. This is very good and he talks about pure sims and biosims, a question you were asking. A pure sim is someone who's wholly simulated. A biosim is someone like in The Matrix who has reality outside who's being deceived. I would call that deception because they think they live in base reality but they don't and in that case
I've come up with some of my own self defeat arguments for you may be in the simulation, but you couldn't know that you are. So you can't believe that. And so, um, what I found is many people who wants to, on the popular level, they want to affirm, um, they, they love the word synchronicity, right? They love, uh, from, from Jung, uh, synchronicity. Are you familiar with the word actually? Yeah, I thought you were, um, I thought I've heard you say it before.
But for those who don't, it's coincidence or, you know, you and was talking with this lady and she had a dream of a scarab beetle. And then as she was saying the dream out loud to him in a session, a beetle was scratching at the window and he goes, there's your scarab beetle. And the analytic philosopher in me is like, well, that was definitely not a scarab beetle because those are from Egypt and this was not in Egypt. And it's, it's, it's a, it's a metaphor. And I, the world,
Lined up in a certain way was synchronous in a certain way to bring about this like deja vu or this feeling of providential control. So that's what I've seen. And I've seen especially in the West with people who've grown up in religious homes who didn't really know what they believe, whose parents didn't teach them, didn't didn't indoctrinate them, didn't give them the teaching. So they go, look, why would I believe this stuff? But of course, you know, I believe everything happens for a reason. So it's not God, then
It looks like it's a simulator. We probably live in a simulation. Why did Donald Trump win the 2016 election? It looked like he totally wasn't. Well, because the simulators wanted to see what would happen if the madman won the election. I heard that so much. And of course, on the philosophical level, folks like Bostrom, Nick Bostrom says, I don't think you could have any positive evidence that you do because the simulators, if they didn't want you to find out, they could always just run it back or scrub your brain. Why would the simulators allow us to even question it?
So why are they allowing, if there's a hiddenness to them, should they exist? So why not be fully hidden? What do you think? Hear that sound?
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Go to shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in shopify.com slash theories. Um, so there's a, there's this guy, Rizvan Burke, who has written a popular book called the simulation hypothesis. He's a computer programmer. He goes in for like a, um, this is syncretism in religions where he wants to unify. Syncretism is unifying all religions. He,
Once I say, look, this has been here the whole time and we're progressing towards enlightenment. And so it's kind of a, um, a soul building theodicy. So in, in the philosophy of religion and what, you know, problem of evil literature, one of the theodicies, the justifications for God's allowing evil is a soul building theodicy. God allows the evil that he does in order to build character and develop our
Our sense of right and wrong develop our characters to grow us and shape us and mold us in ways that are not possible without the presence of evil. So perhaps it's our striving and reaching towards the unknown, which will turn us into the kind of things who could have a proper relationship or could properly handle that type of knowledge. You know, maybe if, if it was super obvious, we would take it for granted or, you know, there's all sorts of ways that they could come up with.
Or, you know, Muse is a band. I love Muse. They're really good. But they came up with a whole album, Simulation Theory. And that's another thing on the popular level. People call it Simulation Theory. And I want to do some more work on theory versus hypothesis, because I think it's a hypothesis. I don't think it's a theory, but I need to. I'm not well spoken enough on that untestable hypothesis as well, at least currently. That's what I think. I mean, people point to the double slit and they'll be like,
Hey, look at the double split double slit experiment. That looks like rendering to me when you look at it. It's rendered when you're not looking at it. It's saving saving data saving, you know, compute. And so it looks like because of fundamental physics or quantum, I shouldn't say quantum physics. What was the word quantum field theory, maybe? Yeah, but you could say quantum mechanics. Okay. So because of quantum mechanics, we have
We have evidence that we live in a computer simulation because anything I'm not looking at is not rendered. How do I know that? Because of the double slit experiment. When you look at it, it's a particle and it's rendered. And so these are all popular level, you know, things that people will use to support the simulation theory. Yeah, I find that I find that a bit.
Superficial. So many people, again, like you can say, well, the double slit experiment, people use the double slit experiment for to justify almost. Yeah, that's right. So whatever religious view you have, it's like there's Yeah, but but the double threat. That's a girdle is God. That's not even everyone's guys Cantor is God. Okay, sure. And there are other interpretations of quantum mechanics that have nothing to do with conscious with a collapse. So and definitely not consciousness collapsing it.
And even if it was collapsed, I don't see why this randomness would be indicative of a, of a computer simulation. And also why is it so I collapse it, then I then once you observe it, you collapse it for everyone. Is that the reason why it's consistent everywhere? Why does this machine have like, so are you saying there's a finiteness then to the energy of the machine that's simulating us? Are you saying there's some finiteness at some at some upper bound? Because otherwise, there would be no reason for this
Conservation. I don't know. There's several questions that come to me as a person from a physics perspective. Yeah. Well, and this is awesome because a lot of times those are the questions that I look, I don't have the information. I don't have that background to go at it in that way. So I like the self-defeat type arguments. I like the consciousness questions and raising the assumptions of machine functionalism. And if substance dualism is true, could
Could a robot have a soul? These kind of questions because that's where I'm comfortable. I want to be a, I'm starting to be a philosopher of mind. So it's fun having these conversations with you. Cause I too bad. You're not going to be a mind fast. I know, dude. It's mind fast. Like that's where I want to be. Yeah. It was awesome last year. Um, so I'm, I'm looking, is there no chance that you'll be there? No, my daughter is supposed to be born in like two days and, uh, Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
I mean, you're gonna record it though.
One of my favorite things, I like going back and listening to the old ones, the ones from last year. And I look back for my questions right away and be like, how did they sound? Did I sound stupid? I thought you had great questions. Great questions. I think some of the best, if not the best questions. I appreciate that, man. Even better than Ben Gorsal's questions, which I think we had to cut some off. I appreciate that. I laugh. We had to cut them just because the audio wasn't good. I laugh about Ben's questions all the time.
Once a month, Ben's questions then become diatribes. So we're like, okay, Ben, like this is supposed to be a 10 second question. The mic is not handed to you because you are now a speaker for the next minute. I laughed so hard because I had known of Ben. I listened to a lot of his stuff after hearing him on lax and really liked him, wanted him to get on the podcast. He came on. He actually was just on the podcast again last week. I love him because he knows too much to have a little soundbite, but someone made the mistake of handing him the microphone.
And this is like, yes, like 101, dude, if you're if you're moderating, you never let go of the microphone. You never give it to the audience. The same stand up rule, stand up rule as well. Yeah. When there's a heckler, some comedians, when you're new, you want to say, OK, then you come on stage. Let's see. No. Then you give all the you give power to the heckler. I think people misunderstand. Ben, when you look at the Ben and Yoshi Bach Theo locution on toe, there are many comments that say,
Sometimes he was putting forward something and saying like, this is ridiculous, but he wasn't saying this is ridiculous. He was saying like, you could say this and you could say that. He was giving it as examples. And some people were thinking, does Ben believe this? I cannot believe Ben believes this. No, no, no. He was citing them as examples of what other people believe.
I think Ben is, well, at least in that debate, I don't like to call them debates, they're theolocutions, but at least in that theolocution, I'd say he was, he was underrated. I think you're right. I listened to that one. I really, really enjoyed it. And people say genius too much today. And, you know, maybe that's even a technical term, which has, you know, specifications. But when I think of like a genius, I'm like, that's like Ben Goertzel. He's, he's not
doesn't really belong outside of the novel. Like this guy should be an inventor in some novel somewhere. That's how, that's how you, if you wanted to come up with kind of like a, uh, kooky genius, you'd write someone like Ben Garza who like kind of messes around with psychedelics, but also can really go in deep with mathematics if you wanted, but then randomly is super good at physics and, and, and continental philosophy and Ben, well, who are you? Where'd you go? I always have to ask him,
Ben, are you, you know, is this Ben Gertzell or is this an AGI? Because I don't want to be the first guy who gets punked like that. You know, he comes up with some chat machine and and then I'm the butt of the joke because I couldn't tell there wasn't the real band. So hopefully he was honest with me. Yeah, that's fantastic. Actually, you brought up one of one of the words that I wanted to ask you about. You collect words, you like words, feel location. Can you can you help us with that? What does that mean?
So it's my way of referring to the sorts of conversations that I have on the Theories of Everything channel when there's more than one guest. Most often, it's me speaking to a single guest. Sometimes there's even lectures filmed, so there's zero me and then 100% guest. But also sometimes there's 50% one guest, 50% another. So for instance, this Joschabach and Ben Gortzel one that occurred about two or three months ago. I call those theolocutions
rather than debates because they're not debates. I don't like the format of debate personally. I find them contrived, especially when they're like, Hey, you have 10 minutes. Okay. Give your opening statement. Then you have 10 minutes. Okay. Now you have five minutes for exchange. This it's so stifling and it's, it's not how people speak. It's also anti-generation of new ideas. The reason is that you then put forward a stake in the ground with your first 10 minutes.
And now you have to defend it or attack. Alternatively, you can get just two people with contrasting views to speak with one another and do so with an emphasis on harmony. And I believe there's a term called meiudic, Socrates meiudic. So the eliciting of new ideas via questioning. Now Socrates, people say Socrates was got people to generate new ideas. I don't know how much of that is just Plato
But who knows?
So Theo Locution is just the root is Theo, meaning God. And it was I was going to call them Theo Maki for God's battling one another. But then I'm like, well, it's not a battle. It's not a contest. It's just them talking. So Theo Locution. Yeah, I really like that. I we had talked about this at Mindfest. And I had I was describing my podcast to you and I was trying to say this is I consider it
Office hours conversations where I have a guest come on. I read their work or much of their work. I have some questions and it's kind of like the audience. I want to introduce you to this stuff, so I usually start out with some introductory stuff, but it's like it's a conversation. I want to discuss your ideas, so I'll often put their papers in the description. So it's like, hey, go read their stuff and then come have a conversation with us.
And then you'd said the same thing. You're like, did you hear me say that? And I was like, no, I guess. Yeah. Cause I haven't heard anyone else say that. That's why I felt like, man, I, I'm connected. Yeah. Or, or you were deceiving me and you did say, so I, I should have known, but again, I was too jealous to, uh, to actually watch your stuff until after I met you and realized you're a cool guy. So after that, I was like, man, this is exactly it. This is what I think.
Sometimes on podcasts, people just end up talking about podcasts too much. So I'm going to stop us if we go too far. But I do think this is one of the best things about podcasts when they're educational type podcasts, where it's like, look, I'm not, I'm not just trying to teach anyone anything. I'm just trying to have a conversation. And a lot of times these are, these are guests I would love to speak with. And now because I have a podcast, I have an opportunity to speak with them. Holy cow. That's amazing. All because I said, Hey, I have a podcast.
Um, but, but I want to do some cutting edge stuff. I want to ask some questions, not to ever. I, I'm really nervous about stomping people because I'm not, if I stump someone, I would probably cut it because I don't, I'm not trying to make anyone look bad. Yeah. The goal isn't to have a gotcha moment. Yeah. And many people, especially on the more contentious topics want to get that. So you find that the criticisms are of two sorts, one that you're too kind, another that you're too harsh, another that, well, then there's the ones that I love.
which are just, I spoke too much at this point and I'm like, Oh, you're right. I'm an idiot. Jeez. And so I temper those qualities or, or, or the lighting was too harsh in this direction, or I'm looking too up or I'm looking too down or whatever it may be. And I, I'm like, okay, thank you, man. Thank you. Thank you. Or thank you. Thank you, girl, whatever it is. And then there's also the sort of a, it's a rare sort, but it's, it's not a negligible sort where some people get upset.
that you don't have enough of what they'll call a diversity of opinions but what they secretly mean is why aren't you interviewing me and then they become upset that you're not interviewing them and they couch it in that you're not interviewing a vast array of people but it really inside it's I need to be on your show and please let me be on your show and then you start to become mistrustful of people who are friends because
You see, at least for me, I see some people, they start off as, oh, they want to be a friend. And then they they they're like, so do you have any bookings open or how do you how does that work? And how do I come on? And then you're like, man, was all this a facade just to just to get on the show? Am I just? Well. Yeah, you understand, I do. It messes with you, it messes with you like and look,
I'm so much smaller than your channel and you're so much smaller than others, right? So like, I can only imagine as it grows, it's like, I'm sure it's hard to start. It's hard to meet new people and trust them and think like, Hey man, oh, you're in physics. Um, okay. You know, how'd you find me? This is so random that we ran into each other. Were you waiting outside? Yeah. Um, but I, I'd love it. There's only a few, well, the few times that I've spoken to people who are
Fans of the podcast, man, they're all just such cool, cool people. I'm so glad except one guy. There's one guy who was a bit odd. I was with me and my wife. I'll tell you this. So me and my wife were walking downtown and then there's this guy. We didn't even know what he was saying. He was like, he was speaking gibberish and he
He thought he was homeless because of how he was dressed and conducting himself. He was handing out something, but then also taking it back and speaking to people in front of us. And we were thinking, I don't want to talk to this person. Let's just move forward. And then he ended up talking to us. He was like, do you want I don't know if he wanted us to vote for someone, if you want us to vote someone out, if you wanted us to buy something from him, I don't know. But then I was like, no, I'm so sorry, sir. Thank you. Thank you, though.
And then I started to walk away. He's like, Oh, nice podcast, by the way. Nice podcast. And I was like, Oh, and then I'm like, Oh, thank you. And usually when I say that someone they come and they shake my hand or they they talk a bit more. He's like, nice podcast. And this started walking. I'm like, Oh, thank you. And I was like leaning toward him. He's just ran. Wow. That's wild, man. Yeah, maybe it was an angel or something. I don't know.
I know. I just wish I, me and my wife both were like, what was he saying? We wished we had paid more attention. I want to know what that was about. Something that's cool. Maybe you, maybe you get some of this too. So, so some people in my audience, when I do meet them, because I have so many different people on to talk about different topics, people will say, Hey, you ask good questions. And that actually means a lot to me. I really do like that compliment because it means I'm on the right track. That's cool.
But when they're like, Hey, I'm a big fan of the show. I'm like, yeah, what episodes do you like? And they'll talk about it. And then I can recall that. Yeah. Wasn't that cool? Because he said this, that that made me think about this. And now I'm like a fan too. And we're both looking at it. So I don't have to be, I'd get really uncomfortable if you're just talking about me, but because of, because my show is about having other people come on, I get to stand on the side with them, you know, and be like, dude, you're right. That guy was awesome. He was, or he's nuts, you know, or yeah, I couldn't get a word in, you know, you know, so it's, it is kind of fun being like,
The podcast is ultimately for me. I am the main target audience and I've tried coming up with a target audience member and it just keeps coming back to me because I'm like, this is stuff I want to think about and I'm not going to have someone on if I don't want to think about their ideas. Yeah. I think some of those marketing exercises are a bit silly where they're like, why don't you come up with your audience profile? Name them. Yeah. And then, yeah, name this person. Okay. It's Andrew.
Or it's Alex or it's Sandra. Okay, where do they live? Yeah, what? Okay, that's so unhelpful. It's just entirely unhelpful, at least to me. I'm with you on that. Once we talked about like not not having got gotcha moment type stuff. It's hard for me if someone is very disagreeable. And a lot of the philosophers are pretty cool.
I think there's a lot more disagreeable people in some of the other harder sciences and there's different reasons for that. You had one with Neil deGrasse Tyson and you guys were getting into it and I watched it so many times because I loved it. I thought you handled yourself so well, man. I thought you did a really good job of being firm.
Being kind of forceful, but not being a jerk and also like backing up what you were saying. I, I just had to bring that one up that I thought you did a really good job on that. And also because I'm, I'm a little bit biased against him. So yeah. Uh, yeah, that was a vinegary interview. He's a bit ornery. However, we both said on air and a bit and off air that we, we, we enjoyed it. And I actually found myself letting go with him more than any other guest in letting go in the sense of feeling more comfortable.
So just so you know, Parker, I say no to almost every single interview of me. You're one of the few that I've said yes to. I just don't like to be interviewed. I feel uncomfortable. I don't have much to contribute or at least I don't think I do. And I don't I feel I'm not myself. In that interview, it's rare that in interviews, even when I'm interviewing, I'm a bit more loose, but I was super loose with that with with Neil, especially toward the end.
That's so that's so cool. And it's kind of odd because he's one of the more famous people you've had. And yet you're able to be like loose with it. That's pretty cool, actually. Yeah, mainly when it comes to like, I can talk to you off. I'll tell you a bit off. Just remind me. Hear that sound.
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Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash theories. Let me let me think for a moment. So remember how I earlier I talked about the quality that I have of pausing in my speech. It's in part what I said, but also because I would rather speak
personally with diffidence, so lack of confidence, then I would by stating something as an categorically as in the separation. And part of the reason is that one people will believe whatever you say more, the more confidence you have in it. Okay, that's just psychologically demonstrated sorry, it's demonstrated in the psychological literature, the more firm you are, the more people will ascribe truth to it. Okay, number two,
The more extroverted you are, and also low neuroticism, the more people ascribe higher intelligence to you. And so in other words, I'm an introverted person. And if I can lean in that, which is, which is honest to me, rather than go in the other direction, it would mean that people would underestimate me. And so a part of me is okay with that. Maybe even once that number four, if I say something with conviction,
Even if I don't believe it, I'll start to believe it afterward. So I'm extremely careful with what I say with conviction, because there's a large chance of Peterson said this, Jordan Peterson said this, and I don't agree. He said, if you if you have something to say, then silence is a lie. I think that's especially not the case for people who are disagreeable. And the reason is, to me, don't think that what you substitute that silence for isn't going to be a greater lie than the silence.
So though I do like Cunningham's law, so Cunningham's law just for people who don't know is if you state something, you can you get corrected by the audience. So part of me, if I'm 80% sure about something, there is there are a couple of times where I may state it firmly in order to offload my cognition. So for instance, if I was to say,
I'm not sure. Let's say loop quantum gravity starts with Wilson loops. Okay, I don't know if it does. Let's just say I just want to say that because then I could search that up. Or I could allow a physicist to correct me say actually loop quantum gravity starts with the semi classical limit and then you quantize from there and blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I'm like, okay, great. So that's one reason that's one pro for speaking without hesitation. And
I'm trying my best to say phrases in a way that I have not said them before so that I'm not repeating myself.
because the more that I repeat myself, the more I get into a groove. And so I'm trying to find a fresh way of expressing a thought, even if it's a thought that I've had before. And that's super difficult, at least for me. I'm with you on that. And in apologetics world where people are defending the Christian faith or having debates, formal debates, like you had mentioned, not liking before, which I'm on board with you there.
A big part of that is rehearsing the phrases that you're going to say and you can see people slip into it. And, um, Rogan, Rogan talked about this, um, the signature in the cell. He had, I forgot his name. I should know his name right now, but I don't, I have his book over here, but anyways, he had him on the podcast and Rogan kind of dismissed a lot of his
his guests arguments because he said it, it felt like he was doing bits like a comedian. It felt like he was slipping into free program. Interesting. And in one sense, I'm like, look, he's a professional and he's trying to, you know, he's trying to explain things to you in a way that you can understand. And he's rehearsed them. But I, I do feel a little bit of what Rogan was saying where it's like, it, it feels a little bit less authentic if you have what you're going to say in mind already.
The difference is that what you mentioned, am I here with you? If it's a conversation with two people, then
You don't want the other person to, sorry, you don't like it when the person gets into presenter mode. You feel like it may as well be PowerPoint slide presenter mode. That's a good word. You want it to be an exploration, both of us. Another another reason is that even if they're trying to or attempting to describe a diamond. If you attack it from other angles, not only do you bring the other person along on the journey, but you you elucidate the diamond, because I spoke about this with, well,
I spoke about this before that if you take a pyramid shape and you shine a light through the top down to the bottom, it would look like a square onto the bottom. If you go from the side, it looks like a triangle. If you go from an askew side, it looks like a ice cream cone. So you can't always infer the shape of the object from its projection. And it seems like what we're doing when we speak or talking about projections, I mean, sorry,
are just projecting and the reason why I say I seem like is because I'm harkening back to earlier when I said it could be that we're just these pale imitations of something else but it could also be that we're so close to it that like it's right there like the love is right there we're not we're not actually approximating something we're being extremely specific and we don't think we are we know the truth we just don't know that we know the truth
But anyhow, as many angles as one can get for me, well, not as many, but many more angles help elucidate the phenomenon or explicate it. That's good, man. I think that's what makes for good podcasting. Another thing that I appreciate about you and I promise I won't just continue complimenting you the whole time, but one thing I did want to call out because I saw it and it's benefited me is your vocabulary. I think I've heard you talk about this on like a Q&A maybe or something and you've
You describe why you take thoughtful pauses. You describe why you're not embarrassed to use a larger vocabulary. And I really appreciated this. I'm not very good at it myself, but I'm working on it. I can't remember like the exact reasoning, but you said you don't blush at it because you're trying to use them and you're trying to like own them. You're trying to use them not in a pretentious way, but it's like we don't need to be
Embarrassed by using the appropriate word if it's an uncommon or a big word, you know, and so even a word that reaches beyond your current grasp is fine, even if it's Inorganic even if it feels inorganic at least to the viewer or to the listener part of like words are
Our petons, so I've interviewed this guy named Alex, sorry, Alex Honnold. He's the guy from Free Solo, the documentary. Petons are what you place in the wall when you're rock climbing, maybe has other uses, but you place them in the wall. And now you can get to that part easier because there was no hold before. So words are like petons, even Douglas Hofstadter mentions this, he may even have used the word peton.
That they allow you to reach places that you couldn't reach before and that and to do so more easily. And OK, how do you see this? Well, imagine if someone had a had a wand that they said, I'm going to remove. 1000 words from your vocabulary, is that OK? You'd be like, no, please, I wouldn't be able to have the same models or see the world in the same way. So what to think about the addition of new words and how do you add new words? Well. It's going to feel contrived at first.
But it's something that takes, at least for me, an extreme amount of effort. But also at the same time, there are words that I know and that you know that are words that are uncommon that someone else may not
No, and so I have rules. I have rules for myself. If I'm in an in-person conversation with someone, I'm not going to bring up a word that I feel like is beyond what they know in order for them to say, but what does that mean? Or just believe me because it sounds, oh, that's such an intellectual word. He must know what he's talking about. So no, I'm not allowed to do that when I'm in person. If it's in writing, then yes. And part of the reason is because no one feels foolish for not knowing some concept in writing because you can just look it up yourself privately when an email is sent.
And if it's in podcast form, well, then I'm going to assume that the interlocutor, the person who I'm speaking to has a similar range of concepts. And even if they don't, it doesn't matter. Anyone can press pause and check it out, check it on their own. And in that case, you've helped them because you've given them a new vocab word to go look up. I. Yeah. And so it's my way of like, look, to speak to someone. I'm a lonely, lonely person, Parker. I don't have to. I'm I. So part of I talk about this plenty, but
There's this guy. There's this guy. There's Leonardo da Vinci. There's some guy. Yeah. Yeah. And he's I resonate so much with them because he unites disparate fields like you mentioned he's syncretic but not with religion with other with other domains. Okay, so I relate to that. I like overviews. I'm a generalist. I'm a generalist specialist. So people say jack of all trades master of none. I think you could be a jack of
of most trades in the master of some.
He was a lonely person, at least that's what I gather from his writings as well. Didn't have connections. Like I feel like I he worked super hard. I feel like I just work, work, work. I have no connections. I sometimes get extremely resentful and bitter about that. I look at other podcasters. I'm like, man, you're in Texas. So you're in L.A. like you're where all the action is at. Yes. And and I'm just hearing and sometimes I'll interview a large guest. They won't even so much as tweet my interview with them.
Generalist,
Well, okay. Yeah, I think it was the loneliness. And the point is that look, the only way that one can expand their concept, their conceptual space or the or even their vocabulary, which are related,
is by speaking, you have to say it like you can write it to yourself, but you have to say it. So you have to say it aloud and to say to use any new tool like juggling, whatever it is, you're going to drop balls. You're going to fumble. And you just have to allow that. I think the fumbling allow yourself to fumble 50 times, 50, like you can count it by the 50th time, you'll be proficient. Yeah. This brings up
So I want to get to the God question because my audience will, we've talked about it a little bit, but I want to get there in more depth. First, I just have to touch on this point. When I write a paper, when I write a theology paper, I have a different personality than when I write a philosophy paper. And it's a weird thing. Different words come- Do you have a different personality? Yeah, I use different words. It's still me, but it's, you know, we talk about that diamond or whatever, it's a different angle on me.
And it's different when I podcast. It's different. It's different when I wrestled in college and I did jujitsu and that brings out a different aspect of me. There's like all these different aspects that are brought out by different things. And so the language that I use is different. If I'm just even the people groups that I hang out with the jokes that I make, you know, if I'm, if I'm with my Indian friends,
and I meet one of their friends, I joke about being an uncle, like look at my uncle mustache, you know, I mean, I look like all the uncles because that's within, you know what I mean? It's within. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just different. And I wonder if you've had that experience or us, our age groups, I think we're close in age, there's like authentic authenticity is really big thing. And to the point of becoming like a negative meme,
I wonder if, oh, is it a negative meme? Yeah, well, from the older millennials and from the boomers, for sure. And from some of the Gen Xers, they're like, OK, you got to be authentic. No, dude, we all have had to put on a brave face and go to work and be a different person. You guys are all obsessed with authenticity. And I'm like, look, I don't know, man. I'm not saying they think that when we say we want to be authentic, we think we don't have any changes to make.
That, you know, I'll just bear all my warts and everything and be who I am and never change who I am. And we're like, no, I just, I just, I'm going to throw up if I have to play your weird games anymore. If I have to like play a game where I'm intentionally lopping off most of my personality in these situations, I'm going to throw up. I can't do it anymore. But I do wonder, like, um, I wonder because you interact with so many different people, is it important to you to be the same person interviewing different people or, or
Are you like, look, each conversation will be a new Kurt in a sense. I'm I'm fairly consistent. But I'm not so I'm not a fan of on of authenticity as an unbridled good as much as many of our generation is. I think that it becomes a trap like there's an authenticity trapped of people saying that of people thinking that they're
Reflexive first responses are more them than something else that's measured. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, coming from the guy who's got measured speech, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's an act of deliberation to find something that's true inside. It's not just, well, I'm going to be honest. That's a synonym for I'm going to be blunt.
And I'm a disagreeable person. And so look, I'm actually doing something that's that is valued in our society when I'm being when I'm falling prey to my my impulses and instincts. So there's a word called sublimation, which means to direct the expression of your instincts to a more culturally socially acceptable form. We tend to think of like, look, we have different personalities, like these like different clothes in a closet
I'm going to be this person today. I'm going to be this person." And then the uncultured person, we would say, you think you're being authentic when you choose just being whatever you want. And then the Nietzschean would say, you have to invent your own clothing, like you can't choose any of those. And then the Buddhist would say, well, none of those are the true you. Maybe it's the naked one, maybe that's the authentic one. But then the Buddhist would say, actually, that's not even you, realize there is no you.
But there's also it could be the case that the relationship between the clothes is more you than any one of the clothes or still you as the chooser. Even in tandem with the clothing is the is the true you. I don't think that well. It's not clear to me that. And by the way, I'm not authentic. All I say every aspect of my life is completely inauthentic, except when I'm with my wife and I talk baby talk like I'm just like,
I'm not going to do now because I'm just so embarrassed. But like I just speak in one syllable words and I don't not even words most of the time. And that is the true me when there are no cameras. That is me. And I'm 100 percent myself. And I'm just this we're both these cute, cuddly people with one another. And then but I'm consistent everywhere else. Yeah. So all this is just some affectation to hide my horrible inarticulacies.
That's so good, man. I resonate with that. That resonates with me, with my wife, man. She's like, dude, if only people knew. Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing. Yeah, that's so wild. Well, I want to get to the God question. Not too much longer, but I wanted to get there through
The philosophy of mind. So we talked about being authentic and such and what you are. I wonder, at this point in your studies, what do you make of yourself? What do you think you are? Do you have a particular philosophy of mind? Do you lean one way or the other? Do you think you're an immaterial substance? Does your mind terminate on your brain? What do you think?
treacherous question. Like, that's a question that I don't want to think about, but I think about incessantly. Like too much. Yeah, that's that's the formidable one. I'm gonna have to skip the question of what am I? Okay.
And no, no, no, but I can answer like other questions that you asked right there. That's good. That's good. So. Do I believe in? There are a couple there are a couple aspects of dualism, so there's property dualism, correct, and then there's. Substance dualism and then there's there's many different types of substance dualism as well, but yeah, yeah, it was so hilarious to me that some people will use, oh, but that's dualism, haha.
As if there's just one sort of dualism, like Daniel Dennett when I was speaking to him, he was not liking the whole, what is it like to be a bat? Because he's like, because that's a dualist position that you could just be here and then you can transport yourself to a bat. Haha. But what do you mean dualist? Haha. It's not clear to me that the dualist position is wrong. It's not clear to me that the modest position or the non-dualist position is correct. But I would say I'm a 157th the list. So there are trial lists and there are dualists.
I'm a 157th list, meaning like, I'd say that in tongue in cheek way, but there's a reason. And that's my present deliberation. So it could change for it oscillates on a well, on a moment to moment basis. But in terms of large swings, maybe on a quarterly basis every three months. So that number is pretty specific. Is there a is there some equation you're about to pull out of nowhere?
Yeah, there's some reason to that number. But I'll, I'm also a secretive person. Parker, that's good. So I've secretive about aspects that probably shouldn't be secretive about and I'm not quite sure why it's not privacy. And it's not it's not like I'm creating an air of mysticism for the sake of it.
I don't know, my brother always told me this, he would always make fun of how I would keep secrets. And that when he would find it out, it'd be so trivial. Like, I would tell him he wouldn't know what like, let's say, hey, Kurt, what time do you tend to wake up? I can't tell you. Why? Why can't you tell? I'm sorry, I just I just can't believe that.
Secrecy in spiritual formation literature, it's like one of the one of the spiritual practices
Um, it's not secrecy in, in hiding aspects of you that would be important to share, but it's like just keeping something between you and God, just like practicing, not, not speaking your mind all the time. Like that's super, isn't that weird? Like when I, I never had thought about that, I always thought, you know, it's wrong to have secrets and kind of like what you mentioned with Peterson earlier, where it's like, yeah, if you have something to say, if you have a truth and you're not sharing it, it's a lie. And I,
I think he probably had someone in mind that is like timid or overly, overly meek, right? Cause you don't, you don't see the brash lady who's yelling at her server and be like, you know what? That was a great job. You really spoke your truth to that guy. You're like, no, you should just eat in that one, dude. You just like, I don't mean eating the food, just eating the insult or eating it, you know? So yeah, it was, it was fascinating to do some of that and see like, Oh, secrecy. It's okay to just have something right now and, and wait
For me, it means waiting until someone pulls it out of you. Maybe I've studied something ad nauseum and someone's talking about it and it's like, please ask me. I need you to ask me so I can be in this conversation, but just not offering it unless I'm invited in. And then even when you're invited in,
Not just brain dumping all over them, information dumping all over them in a way that's going to glaze them over and they don't want it anymore, but slowly giving it out in a way that's not putting you up on a pedestal. There's a proverb about let someone else speak good of you and not your own mouth. Yes, yes.
So, so in Mark, in the Bible, that's, by the way, my favorite book, even though I haven't read all the books and I don't even think I've read one book fully. But Mark is one of my favorites because Jesus and firstly, it's the most plain spoken Jesus. And then he gets more and more elevated up until John, where he's become equivalent to God. But in Mark, some people are like, are you the son of God? And then he's like,
What do you think? In other words, he's like, oh, no, no, then then the Pharisees even say to him, like, you say you're this. No, you're the son of man or son of God. You're the son of God. And he's like, so you say you've said it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that to me is the opposite of our current insistence that we're allowed to choose our own identity. Jesus is like, I'm not even going to tell you, like you decide what I am.
My identity is not for me to assign. Yeah. And, and in, in both ways, right, there's like a liberal view and a conservative view on that. And both are him not making his own identity. The conservative way is like, no, he said his father in heaven has given him his identity and he only speaks what he says. And then I don't, the liberal way would be like, yeah, he's not God, but he's a moral exemplar.
When you speak to Dennett and you speak to Chomsky, if you don't ask them religious questions, you would never know they're militant atheists. I said something about Jesus and he's like, Jesus was a good person, actually a great person. And then he's like, Christianity was necessary for the Enlightenment.
He says, I'm like, and then he also has views about about truth being pragmatic. So truth is what he doesn't say loving. But again, that's a religious, a religiously tinged word. So he probably avoids it. But he says all that he could say outside of love, like it's for the positive, it's for the good. And it's only truthful if it is. I was so surprised about that. Yeah, these are
These are good things to draw out of people who in a debate, you'd never hear it. You'd never hear that because he's got to represent this position. He's got to represent what he came on to talk about, but not, um, you know, exploring new, new territory or being honest with giving, giving the other side a win, you know, or, or anything like that. Um, I wanted to.
I wanted to get to the God question through, through the man question, like what, what we are, what, what we take ourselves to be, but something that's, that's hard for me to understand is, um, like human value outside of a theistic perspective where humans are made in the image of God. I understand a lot of pragmatic arguments.
But it's a lot of people think that we're on a continuum with animals and we're just, um, one degree this way, you know, and there's not like an analytical gap. And some of those people will then become vegans and be like, look, no suffering at all. Others are like, no, I eat a pig. And I'm like, well, you eat pigs, but you don't eat human children. Cause I think you recognize there's a difference. Like what is that difference in my, in my belt and shong it's because you're made in God's image. He's, he's made us with.
certain intellectual capacities to recognize things. Maybe it's tacit knowledge. You talked about knowing something, but not knowing why you know it or knowing that you know it. Um, so maybe it's part of like the, the, the, the Pollyannian tacit dimension or something like that, or, or maybe it's ingrained in, in our soul. If we are substance to us, something like that. But I wonder what, like, do you, do you believe there is a God? This is like a tough question to be asking you. You said the, the one in my question is hard.
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Sometimes I
I pray before meals. It's not even clear to me what I'm praying to. But I think that that's something that. I think that's a practice, that's a practice that's enriched my life, by the way, like heavily. I think that's something more people, I think that should be socially acceptable to do that. You don't see that at restaurants almost anywhere. No one just take a moment, take a moment before you eat.
Okay, okay. Now, now you need no one does that. About this, about this, that we're just on the continuum with animals. It's not clear to me that how much when you go in one direction being an extreme of a degree, like we always say, it's a different degree, but not different of kind. Does that become a difference of kind? If you're so far
Advanced and one in on one spectrum. I don't know. I think to me the greatest philosophical there are two greatest philosophical problems of our era. For me, for what I dealt deal with one is sorites sorites paradox. And so that comes into play here.
And for those who don't know, it's just how many grains of sand you need to become a heap. I guess you look at a heap of sand, you say that's a heap. But then if you were to start from one grain at a time, you say that's three grains. That's not a heap. When is it? Is it at 10? Is it arbitrary? I think the easiest case to say is that it's just arbitrary and linguistic. But I don't think that that's I think that we're just not giving that question. It's due. And I think that at the root of almost every philosophical problem that I see and that I'm interested in is
The ship of Theseus or Sorites paradox. And the other philosophical problem I can't recall now, the ship and Theseus and Sorites sororities to me are the same, because it's like, well, when does when does something become something else? I've also I've always I've been wondering, Parker, if I could extend string theory. So I'm doing an iceberg on string theory. And that's the most effort that's gone into any video on toe. So it's a whole podcast that's
The iceberg format and if people are unfamiliar, what it is, is at first you go into about five to seven layers and you start at the surface level of some idea. So let's say consciousness. That's another one I want to do the consciousness theories. So what are there? So the surface levels are there's dualism, then there's, well, there's a soul and then there's
that you're not conscious is an illusion. Okay, then layer number two is where more of the people who are researchers in the field, sorry, not researchers, but people who look into the field know about so maybe substance dualism or property dualism. I think that would be more like layer three. But anyway, as you get lower and lower, perhaps by layer four, you get to where only researchers like only PhDs know about these concepts. And then even level six and seven are so obscure that like 10 people know about and they're even dark.
So I'm working on one for the mathematics of string theory, something I'm toying with. It doesn't make sense, by the way, what I'm about what I'm about to say is that look, a string is an extended object. Firstly, you think of an electron as just a point. So string theory's innovation is, well, why don't we give another parameter so that it becomes like a line? Okay, and when I say parameter, I mean, like a number like you can extend the object.
Okay, and you can extend it. So it's one object and you can also have closed objects like closed loops. I'm wondering if there's an extension called worm theory. So it's a disk instead of and there is this in a sense because there are different brains. There's like D two brains and D one brains. Is it like an extended closed loop? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's like a disk throughout time. But then there's also something by Putnam, by the way, who believe that what is us is not
us in any moment but us extended through time. So look, we think it's quite obvious that we're spatially extended, like we're here, I'm here, I'm this long. Okay. But we have so many questions about what is us through time. And the Buddhist answer is that there is none and so you're impermanent and thus it's an illusion, which by the way implies that anything that is not existing in time is elusive.
Sorry, it's an illusion. I don't know if that's the case. They're using the word illusion as a synonym for it being not permanent, which isn't the way that we use it in our everyday context. I'm saying that because some people just think, oh, it's Buddhism. It must be correct because look, I'm so Western Lee enlightened that I have even critiqued my father of Christianity and I'm willing to accept the enemy of Buddhism. And so look how, yeah, you get the idea. But they also have a Western interpretation of the East and that itself is watered down.
So Putnam would say it's quite possible that what is us, what defines us is not just you in any single moment, but the whole worm of you through time. Yeah. We call those space time worms in, uh, in metaphysics. Uh, Oh, so this, this is another one, man. You're all over the place. You're, you're, you're jumping onto stuff. It's so good. Yeah. David, David Lewis is, is another one, another philosopher who talks about that. Um,
And you're, I believe it's called segments. People have different words for it, but I have, I'm like, what are you? And some people would say you're the collection of your space time worm. Like that's what you are. Others, others might say it's you, you take a slice, a time slice. And that's who you are is who you wholly are at that time slice. Um, Parker, I have to stop you because I gotta get going, man. I'm so sorry. There's another meeting. We went, we went, we went already longer. Yeah, I'm sorry, man. We went away longer.
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"text": " Hey, welcome back to another episode of Parker's Penses. I'm your host, Parker Seticase. And this is a podcast where we explore all the deepest ideas in philosophy, theology, nature and life. I love thinking about cool stuff. So come think with me. This episode is a very, very special one. I have with me Kurt Jaimungal from the YouTube channel Theories of Everything. Kurt is awesome. I met him at MindFest 2023. And like I say in the episode, I used to really, really envy him. And so I wouldn't listen to his stuff because I was petty."
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"text": " And I got over that, started listening to his channel and realized this dude's a master and he has some of the most amazing conversations about fundamental reality, about theories of everything, about UFOs and UAPs and everything. He talks about philosophy, theology, nature and life, just like I do. He covers it from more of a theoretical physicist perspective, whereas I cover"
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"text": " this stuff from analytic philosophy and analytic theology. So it was really fun having this conversation with him where we talk about the same things from different perspectives. In this conversation, Kurt gives us a definition of a theory of everything. What does that term mean? He lays it out for us. We also talk about Weltanschauens or worldviews or world and life views. We talk a little bit about the authorial analogy for the God-world relation."
},
{
"end_time": 220.964,
"index": 8,
"start_time": 194.343,
"text": " We talk about the simulation hypothesis, surprise, surprise, as well as the nature of human persons and much, much more. So make sure you watch the full video to hear all the craziness that we get into a note about the ending. It is pretty abrupt. And that's because Kurt and I both went over the time that we allotted for this conversation. We're having a really good time. So hopefully this is just part one of part two or part 10. So make sure you go over to theories of everything and let them know that you like this conversation."
},
{
"end_time": 250.213,
"index": 9,
"start_time": 220.964,
"text": " Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me man. Yeah, and it's been so we met like a year ago at mind fest 2022 the inaugural one it was awesome and"
},
{
"end_time": 279.07,
"index": 10,
"start_time": 251.203,
"text": " 2020-23. Dude, that's right. It's 24 now. My goodness. Holy cow. Yeah. Well, 23 was the year of chat GPT. That's right. So it was that year. We'll all remember. Yeah, that's wild. Even though I just forgot it. But it's so it's so good to have you on here, man. I love what you're doing. And we met we met at MindFest and I didn't know who you were. And I remembered later because I'd seen your stuff a bunch recommended to me. And I was"
},
{
"end_time": 305.401,
"index": 11,
"start_time": 279.974,
"text": " a podcast or for a year or two, maybe two and a half years at that point. And I remember seeing your stuff initially and being really jealous of you. And so I didn't watch any of your stuff because I was like, dude, no way I want to have these people on. And so then I saw you in person and then I put it together after we had talked and I was like, dude, what a dummy I am for for letting my jealousy get in the way of getting good content. So after that, I just binged a bunch of your stuff. And I should say for the audience, I already did in the intro, but"
},
{
"end_time": 333.899,
"index": 12,
"start_time": 305.981,
"text": " Kurt's got an amazing YouTube channel called Theories of Everything with Kurt Dimungo and it's insane. It's so good. The range of topics you cover while still talking about theories of everything is insane. Jealousy is my primary motivator so I can 100% align myself with that. I understand it. That's good to know. I'm not alone here. Kurt, my audience are many"
},
{
"end_time": 362.466,
"index": 13,
"start_time": 334.155,
"text": " Many in my audience are interested in philosophy of religion. Others are just straight up philosophy, secular philosophy or Christian philosophy, whatever. I've been catching this idea of theories of everything from the physics folks and the theoretical physics folks. And I haven't heard a lot of my philosophy friends talking about it. So I wanted to introduce some of them to it or just show those who are familiar with it. Hey, look, this is a really big topic that you should be talking about because it's an abstract idea."
},
{
"end_time": 380.247,
"index": 14,
"start_time": 362.654,
"text": " That touches so many different sub-disciplines. Right off the bat, can you explain, like, what is a theory of everything? Is it really supposed to encompass everything, like virtue, love, morality, or is it more limited in scope to harmonizing quantum mechanics in, you know, macro physics type stuff?"
},
{
"end_time": 404.684,
"index": 15,
"start_time": 381.271,
"text": " Mm-hmm. Yeah, the term theories of everything or theory of everything is a tongue-in-cheek term because physicists think that everything comes back to physics I used to say this as well up until just a couple years ago that Hey, even the political situation is the way that it is because if you reduce it it becomes down to people or game theory and if you reduce that it becomes neurology if you reduce that it becomes"
},
{
"end_time": 417.995,
"index": 16,
"start_time": 405.06,
"text": " Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor"
},
{
"end_time": 448.131,
"index": 17,
"start_time": 418.49,
"text": " It is something that we that physicists like to think because it inflates their, their ego, their, their insecure ego, their fragile. So good. So theories of a theory of everything is something that means in physics means how do you combine or how do you in one framework explain or unify or have as two different facets, general, general relativity, which is the dynamic curvature of space and time or space time, sorry, and then"
},
{
"end_time": 473.643,
"index": 18,
"start_time": 448.609,
"text": " Quantum field theory or or the standard model, actually. So the theory of the small is what people say. It's not actually quantum mechanics, because you have to incorporate relativity. So it has to be quantum field theory. And it's not just any quantum field theory has to be the one that is the standard model, because there are several different sorts of quantum field theories. Dude, I'm writing all this down. This is so good. That's that's a really helpful clarification. Actually, I really appreciate that."
},
{
"end_time": 499.701,
"index": 19,
"start_time": 474.701,
"text": " You mentioned Velton Chang, and I'm notorious for mispronouncing words on here. I call it Parker's Pencies instead of Pensees. I know I like it. So I'm probably saying Velton Chang wrong. But in my philosophy studies, Velton Chang is a worldview and you're supposed to... it's debated whether that's conceptual, whether it also incorporates like heart motives and stuff like that. And it's a general theory of everything."
},
{
"end_time": 512.329,
"index": 20,
"start_time": 500.367,
"text": " Not in the physics sense of the world. So I've heard you mentioned Belton Chong yourself. What's the difference between a theory of everything and a Belton Chong? And is it the same thing for some of those physicists that we were mentioning earlier?"
},
{
"end_time": 535.282,
"index": 21,
"start_time": 515.094,
"text": " I had no idea that it's a term used in the philosophical literature or the circles of philosophy, even colloquially. It's just something that I like words and it was an interesting word that actually to the Germans literally means worldview, but the way that I use it is to mean"
},
{
"end_time": 566.374,
"index": 22,
"start_time": 537.295,
"text": " It's a framework through which one interprets the world that's unexampled or bespoke. So it's particular to a person because some people could say, well, what about the Christian Weltanschauung? OK, you can consider that a Weltanschauung. It's certainly a theory or certainly a worldview. But I am more interested in someone like Ian McGilchrist who has arrived at theirs through their own research and through also looking at other religions, comparative analysis. Yeah."
},
{
"end_time": 588.865,
"index": 23,
"start_time": 566.971,
"text": " And that if you were to pose a question like this, if I ask Ian McGill, Chris, why is this three inches or two and a half or whatever it is? Why is that? By the way, for the people listening, I am referring to some lip balm just so he's a pro. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Why is this this color or this length or whatever it may be?"
},
{
"end_time": 616.63,
"index": 24,
"start_time": 590.503,
"text": " He would have an answer. He would be like, because the left brain, when it views the world, it wants to use it through utility in his grasp. I can't come up with it. I'm not Ian McGilchrist. But the point is that he would have an answer to almost any question that you throw at him. And there are many, there are quite maybe 40 people that I've catalogued that are like this. Those I call Weltanschauungs. So it's their way of interpreting"
},
{
"end_time": 644.906,
"index": 25,
"start_time": 619.514,
"text": " It's their way of making sense of the world in a cohesive framework that also informs their action, and generally speaking, their world view and their actions are consistent as well. Most often, it doesn't have anything to do with physics, so John Vervecky has a Veltan show. Almost all of his thoughts come down to something called relevance realization. It's a joke that I always say to him. Every answer is relevance realization."
},
{
"end_time": 673.677,
"index": 26,
"start_time": 645.265,
"text": " Yeah, um, Kurtz, well, one thing I'm,"
},
{
"end_time": 700.486,
"index": 27,
"start_time": 674.258,
"text": " I knew coming in that you're a very thoughtful guy and I would have to be comfortable with some silence that I love filling. I'm like a silence filler. I'm like, and I'm from Chicago and we talk really Chicago land and we talk. So I am, uh, I'm really excited for this can be a practice, uh, for, and for me to be a little bit more thoughtful and be more comfortable with silence as well. So if I, if I, for the audience, if you're hearing a silence that, uh, Kurt was done speaking,"
},
{
"end_time": 729.377,
"index": 28,
"start_time": 700.708,
"text": " And I didn't feel it's because I'm working on it here. I'm trying to be more thoughtful. Kurt, so we used to call it a world and life view that got shortened down to worldview in philosophy of religion and in philosophy. More generally, we in philosophy of religion like it even more. But yeah, the early the early Dutch and a lot of the Germans would say world and life and life was supposed to incorporate the livability that this isn't just airy fairy. This is not just theoretical. It's theoretical and practical."
},
{
"end_time": 753.507,
"index": 29,
"start_time": 730.213,
"text": " That's been one of the critiques of the Velton Chang model of viewing life is that, look, it's not practical. It's like, no, we're trying to recapture it. So it's really cool that you've taken this word as well to mean what a lot of us have been saying. Also, we love this word, Velton Chang, especially in philosophy of religion. Something that you just brought up to me that I've been chewing on for a little bit,"
},
{
"end_time": 781.203,
"index": 30,
"start_time": 754.633,
"text": " is thinking about a worldview versus like the worldview. So a lot of people will talk about, I'm a, I'm a Christian myself. So a lot of people say the Christian worldview. And there are certain things that if you don't believe your, it puts you outside of Christian orthodoxy. So you don't hold to the Christian worldview, I suppose. But as I chewed on it myself, and I've spoke with many, many Christians, uh, both philosophically, theologically, and just on the popular level, there,"
},
{
"end_time": 810.282,
"index": 31,
"start_time": 781.886,
"text": " Everyone believes so many different things about God and God's sovereignty and God's providence and what happens to you after you die and what kind of beings we are. And I think more and more I'm seeing that there is like I have a Christian worldview. So there's certain necessary sufficient conditions probably that I have to meet. I have to believe I have to affirm in order to know for my worldview to count as a Christian worldview. But mine is going to be different than everyone in my church to, you know, like we all supposed to believe the same thing. So"
},
{
"end_time": 839.531,
"index": 32,
"start_time": 810.794,
"text": " I really appreciate that way of viewing it. Some people will think, well, everyone has a worldview, like you said, and that may be true, but not everyone has a well thought through worldview, right? Not everyone has has chewed on these ideas. What are some of those things that? What are some of those things that make for a worldview? What are some of the necessary questions that must be that you must have an answer to, even if it's not, you know, a definitive answer?"
},
{
"end_time": 848.37,
"index": 33,
"start_time": 839.923,
"text": " What are some of the world view type questions that you have in mind?"
},
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"start_time": 848.746,
"text": " football fan, a basketball fan, it always feels good to be ranked. Right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. The app is simple to use. Pick two or more players. Pick more or less on their stat projections. Anything from touchdowns to threes and if you're right, you can win big. Mix and match players from"
},
{
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"text": " any sport on PrizePix, America's number one daily fantasy sports app. PrizePix is available in 40 plus states including California, Texas,"
},
{
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"index": 36,
"start_time": 881.084,
"text": " Florida and Georgia. Most importantly, all the transactions on the app are fast, safe and secure. Download the PricePix app today and use code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. PricePix. It's good to be right. Must be present in certain states. Visit PricePix.com for restrictions and details."
},
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"text": " Firstly, a note on the tentativeness in my speech. It's in large part because I'm doing my best to not give you a phrase that I feel like has been echoed by someone else. And I'm just glomming onto it because I believe it sounds intellectual or interesting, but it's not actually mine. And almost every thought that comes to me is of that sort. And so I'm constantly comparing it to an internal feeling I have until there's a congruence."
},
{
"end_time": 966.323,
"index": 38,
"start_time": 939.667,
"text": " So I'm attempting to be extremely measured and specific when I speak now about the the Veltan Chang, the question, sorry, the questions that that I'm trying to address. So. See, it's a bit tricky, man. It's a hazardous question to even talk about these questions. So I'll give you some example, like, OK, examples would be why are we here? Why something rather than nothing?"
},
{
"end_time": 995.964,
"index": 39,
"start_time": 967.005,
"text": " The largest philosophical questions, the ones that people have been wrestling with for for millennia. But I also wonder. Part of this toe project is me, I look, it's a couple of facets. So one, I'm either trying to come up with my own toe and put forward my own or number two, convincing myself that someone else already has a toe and then just believing that one or a minor alteration of that one."
},
{
"end_time": 1026.459,
"index": 40,
"start_time": 996.51,
"text": " The number three would be convincing myself that in practice, it's impossible for us as humans to know, so there's some unknowability to it. Or three, in principle, it doesn't even exist to convince myself of that. Or five, that it's not even worth going after the toe. And any answer to any of those, even if a toe doesn't exist or it's not worth it, that itself to me is a toe. To then sit with the question silently and say, I don't even care about this question anymore."
},
{
"end_time": 1050.486,
"index": 41,
"start_time": 1028.148,
"text": " That in itself is some answer to me. It may be that it's an extremely simple. It may be. So here's something Tolstoy said, by the way. I'm because I'm heavily paraphrasing, but I can get you the source after the podcast. So Tolstoy said, Look, you say you care about society."
},
{
"end_time": 1080.759,
"index": 42,
"start_time": 1050.862,
"text": " You don't care about society like you're doing all of your social good because you care about everyone. You care. You know, what is society to you? You don't know society. You know, Ben, you know, Jeff, you know, your mom, you know, your child, you don't know society. You don't know the state. You don't know the world. Don't pretend that you're doing something for the world. And then someone countered like, yeah, but but then if you abstract so much, you say, you know, God, isn't that the most abstract?"
},
{
"end_time": 1110.333,
"index": 43,
"start_time": 1080.862,
"text": " He's like, God is the most concrete. Right there, he touches someone's chest. He says, right there, that love that you feel. That's God. God is the closest thing to you. It's the opposite from abstraction. It's what you can know personally. In that regard, there's two, there's the mystic view. God is unknowable, ineffable, enigmatic, cabalistic. And then there's the one that says, no, you can have a personal relationship to God."
},
{
"end_time": 1133.626,
"index": 44,
"start_time": 1110.725,
"text": " I don't know. Maybe it's both. Maybe there's some aspect of God that you can know right then and there like that without a distance between you. And there's also an equality of God that's always escaping you, always escaping you. You never match it. Like both can be true simultaneously. How? I don't know. There's something paradoxical. But I also think that paradoxes don't mean"
},
{
"end_time": 1161.988,
"index": 45,
"start_time": 1135.606,
"text": " So the intellectual, the rational intellectual or someone who thinks of themselves as such likes to think likes to use as a cudgel, like, hey, what does that even mean? They'll say that it like defiantly as if it's a checkmate. Whereas for me, I say that shamefully as a resignation. What does that mean? I don't know. Shoot. I need to understand more. I mean, there's that's me at my best. So I don't know. I think paradoxes are a way"
},
{
"end_time": 1190.401,
"index": 46,
"start_time": 1162.21,
"text": " of signaling, we don't know how to make sense of it, rather than it doesn't make sense. Those are those are different. So I don't know, there's a view that hey, the theory of everything, the theory of everything, if there is if there even is the what there may be, like, I'm not discounting that I'm not a subjectivist, like, so like that, but"
},
{
"end_time": 1219.838,
"index": 47,
"start_time": 1191.493,
"text": " It may be something extremely simple, simple. Wheeler said this that. Yeah, I forgot the exact quote, but it had to do with that the. Well, Wheeler and Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein's quote, I remember he said he had something called, I think they're called clarificatory remarks. I was never able to find the source of this afterward, but he said there are those aspects of things that are most hidden"
},
{
"end_time": 1252.005,
"index": 48,
"start_time": 1222.142,
"text": " But important, sorry, our most important, but hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity, almost like a water to fish. So maybe it's just right there. The theory of everything's right there, Parker. It's like right there. Yeah. Um, I love what you're talking about with God, especially pulling Tolstoy. So I did, um, I've just been collecting masters theses or masters, um, degrees because they keep giving them to me for free. So just an accident of history, but I did one in systematic theology and I wrote on"
},
{
"end_time": 1282.159,
"index": 49,
"start_time": 1252.346,
"text": " the authorial analogy for the God-world relation. And in theology, a big question is, how does God relate to the world? If he's outside of time and space, how can he interact with his creatures? How can he be that personal God that Christianity claims he is? If he's outside of time and space, and if he's not, how can he interact with us and we still have free will? Or how can he have a definite plan? All these kinds of things. There's a God-world relation and the God-world distinction. So how does he relate and how is he distinguished?"
},
{
"end_time": 1311.937,
"index": 50,
"start_time": 1282.995,
"text": " One of my supervisors, Kevin Van Hooser, is a really big deal in systematic theology world. He put forward this view that God relates the world like an author does to his play, or he calls it a theodrama. We live in a theodrama. And he says it's analogical. So it's not univocal. It's a way to speak literally about God. God is literally an author, but not univocally. So he's not literally writing on paper and pen, but he"
},
{
"end_time": 1340.503,
"index": 51,
"start_time": 1312.671,
"text": " creates by his word. And so that's a way to try and do justice to what you said about, about both being true, God being, I wouldn't say ineffable because one of my other professors has this whole big screed about ineffability. And he says, if you want to write a book on ineffability, God being ineffable, just get a blank journal, right? The, the, the, um, the title God is inevitable and then submit that because that's all you could say about God if he's ineffable."
},
{
"end_time": 1367.261,
"index": 52,
"start_time": 1340.998,
"text": " but being incomprehensible. Maybe we can't, we can't fully comprehend God, but if God's like an author, then just like talking is on every page of his book, he's there. Those are his words, his story, the whole university being upheld by his word. And yet he's distant because unless he introduces himself to the characters, they don't know who he is. Um, and so the, and the Christian story, it's like, well, no, the, the logos, the word,"
},
{
"end_time": 1397.756,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1367.841,
"text": " Jesus is Tom Bombadil."
},
{
"end_time": 1426.92,
"index": 54,
"start_time": 1398.575,
"text": " Uh, it's a second chance types in heaven and goes to hell or he's in hell in hell and goes to take a bus ride, take a field trip to heaven. Basically. How does he, how does that occur? Oh, there's a bus out to do this in the others. Yeah, there's a bus and the bus takes him there and everyone ends up saying they'd rather stay in hell for various reasons, but, um, they won't let go of their certain things. He said there's even a, there's a theology colloquium in hell of people talking about like the theology stuff, because again, it's about,"
},
{
"end_time": 1454.206,
"index": 55,
"start_time": 1427.551,
"text": " It's about knowing God and not just knowing about God and stuff like that. So anyway, C.S. Lewis writes himself in to the story. He's he's the main character, which is pretty cool that he chose himself to be in hell to go to heaven and say someone else. But he's upholding the whole universe of that story while still being the main character. So the other characters can know him truly, but not fully. They don't know that he's the author of the story they live in. So that's that's that kind of theorizing."
},
{
"end_time": 1484.002,
"index": 56,
"start_time": 1454.616,
"text": " It's systematic theology. That's what attracts me so much to your channel and the type of thinkers you talk with because a lot of theoretical physicists want to know like what is the nature of fundamental reality, even though they may not say that. I think some of them do some of them who are philosophically like who have a who prioritize philosophy. They will say those kind of words. Others. I think that's what they're getting at. But they they're like philosophy doesn't do anything. They don't know philosophers are dumb."
},
{
"end_time": 1514.019,
"index": 57,
"start_time": 1484.753,
"text": " So I'm with you on this. This is like, I'm trying to come at it from a theological perspective, also from a philosophical one as well. But, um, I love it, man. I love what you're getting at, but I wonder how, how did you come about? I mean, dude, a big part of your life is theories of everything, exploring those things. You explore other things as well, but your whole channel is called that. How did that come about? What, what made you want, what made you think there was enough of them to like,"
},
{
"end_time": 1521.476,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1514.309,
"text": " Base part of your life, you know, you're a big part of your life on exploring these ideas Hear that sound"
},
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"text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the Internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
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"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone"
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"text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com"
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"text": " I don't recall who said this but someone said if there's if there's"
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"text": " If you knew how daunting of a task, if you had enough knowledge that you knew how insurmountable the task was that you're endeavoring to to accomplish, then you wouldn't have gone into it to begin with. So you have to be immature in some sense, though, even calling it theories of everything is a mark of my immaturity that I think that there is a theory of everything or that there that that is noble or that it can encompass everything."
},
{
"end_time": 1676.084,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1650.93,
"text": " It started from Donald Hoffman. Donald Hoffman has some claims about consciousness being fundamental. And no one was asked and he kept saying that my views are contingent on my math. Okay, so why is no one asking him about the math? He says that they're in papers. So I just read the papers and then I interviewed him and then people seem to like that. And I've always almost always been interested in theories of everything."
},
{
"end_time": 1705.418,
"index": 65,
"start_time": 1676.869,
"text": " Like the largest puzzles that can be solved. I'm super interested in and I have fun. I have fun doing it, man. Like it's I, I find it invigorating and it's so invigorating. It bangs on almost every single cylinder. I don't ever dread work except when it comes to video editing. That's it. See you on that."
},
{
"end_time": 1735.486,
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"start_time": 1706.015,
"text": " Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And then also when there's a podcast out, I have to tweet about it. I have to make sure. OK, did I do so in the discord? Did I do so in the subreddit? Did I email the guest and tell them that the URL is out? What else have I forgotten? OK, what about the description? OK, got to do time stamps. There's so much that goes into it that I just don't care about. Like I want to just study for the toes, study for toe, like study someone's toe or someone's theory of everything or interview someone."
},
{
"end_time": 1765.657,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1735.998,
"text": " I go through the exact same thing. Something that encourages me is I go back to why I started this. I started this because I had a lot of friends that I was making in my academic work who were brilliant, who I wanted more people to know about, and I would read their papers."
},
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"index": 68,
"start_time": 1765.998,
"text": " I'd be like, man, this is such a great paper. You spent a year, two years writing this paper for people who read this in some obscure journal. So maybe I can help expose other people to this and promote the paper. And then when it becomes like, it becomes something else, it becomes something where, yeah, I would love to make a living doing this full time becomes, I find myself wanting to promote so much and"
},
{
"end_time": 1820.06,
"index": 69,
"start_time": 1790.589,
"text": " When I go back and think, why am I doing this? Why did I start doing this? It's not that it's not just raw, pure, you know, pure intellectual endeavor. I'm sure I wanted money, but I say, hey, look, I have to do this or less people will find out about the ideas. And my, my guests were generous enough to give me their time. So I better put in my time to make sure that people find out about their ideas. That's like the only way I can do it. If I don't have that in mind, I'll sit on an episode forever. And she's like, yeah, you know, it's not, no, no, no, this guy,"
},
{
"end_time": 1831.578,
"index": 70,
"start_time": 1820.452,
"text": " Both of us are extremely fortunate that we're on YouTube because"
},
{
"end_time": 1860.998,
"index": 71,
"start_time": 1831.8,
"text": " In a sense, it's content marketing. So even though I said, yeah, we have to do all this promotion, and that's necessary for it to flourish. It's also false. Because look, when we put on YouTube, YouTube's algorithm, if the content is good enough for certain people starts to spread it and it wants to it wants eyeballs on YouTube. So hopefully, whatever we're doing is eyeball worthy. But but clearly the the the other components. Yeah. Yeah. And"
},
{
"end_time": 1883.558,
"index": 72,
"start_time": 1862.705,
"text": " I'm getting to the point. There's been a couple episodes. I won't say who they were, but I've taken them because someone sent me a book and I felt bad. And I was like, look, here's him in the book, you know, I'll have you on. And now I'm to the point where I'm like, I'm just not, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing a conversation because it won't actually, it won't do justice to the person coming on. Cause I'm not interested in talking. What's that? What do you mean?"
},
{
"end_time": 1912.261,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 1884.462,
"text": " Like someone sends you their book and you're not impressed with it and you're like, Oh, I said I was going to interview you, but I can't cause I just don't think you're that deep of a thinker. I think it's false. I'm not interested. Yes. Yeah. And can you tell me who they were off there? I could. You wouldn't know who they were. I would imagine, but, um, but yeah, I can tell you that I, I'm, I'm, I want to be kind also, you know, I don't want to be squish ball, but I'm like, look,"
},
{
"end_time": 1937.415,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 1912.466,
"text": " I don't think that your work is that good and I don't want to put this out and promote this. So I've stopped doing that. Good? Yeah. Good as in good for humanity? Good. Or good as in it's not original? If it was not original, I would not have them on. I think that'd be fine. If it were, sorry, if it were like plagiarism, plagiarism. Oh no, I mean, it's not seminal work. It's not work that would produce other work. No."
},
{
"end_time": 1966.732,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 1938.063,
"text": " Because I think I've had people on who this was not seminal work, but it was a really good, uh, like recap or rehashing or, you know, it was, it's a, it's, it's something that maybe I didn't learn something new, but I know my audience would, and I feel really good promoting this. Um, so like the reason I wanted to have you on is because one, I think you're really interesting guy. And I love the way you think about the same questions I'm thinking about, but just from a different lens and from more like"
},
{
"end_time": 1993.456,
"index": 76,
"start_time": 1967.261,
"text": " I'm so terrible at math and you're like the math guy. So it's cool that I think we have different tools, but we're still chewing on the same ideas. I wanted to have you on, especially for my audience, because I'm like, look, you guys, philosophy does a really bad job at public teaching, at reading the public. There's a few people who are good at it. David Chalmers is very good at it. Um,"
},
{
"end_time": 2019.633,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 1994.565,
"text": " But there's not a whole bunch who are and they're like, look, I'm doing really important work. This is what I care about. And so people should be interested in this work. And I'm like, look, I am, but I'm a philosopher. I'm studying this stuff. I spent my whole life studying it. I want other people to be interested in your ideas as well. So you need to look at what is, what does the world care about and see if you can meet them halfway with the work that you're doing. So a lot of people are interested in simulation hypothesis."
},
{
"end_time": 2044.718,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 2020.418,
"text": " Most of my academic philosophy friends are like, why are you still banging on about the simulation hypothesis? I'm like, you know, do you know anyone in computer science? Do you know anyone over in? There's like a whole cult of people who are all obsessed with it. And if you're in philosophy of religion, man, yeah, talking about the simulator. Is that God? Are we speaking univocally, analogically, all that abstruse, obscure,"
},
{
"end_time": 2067.039,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 2045.179,
"text": " philosophy of language that we use in theology. That's really important now for simulation hypothesis. So I want to have you on so I can get some cross some crossbreeding. I want them to listen to your stuff and see like, there are a lot of people talking about fundamental reality who are not philosophers. And if you're wise, you'll read their stuff and connect with them and get the conversation going."
},
{
"end_time": 2092.312,
"index": 80,
"start_time": 2069.957,
"text": " Yeah, when it comes to the simulation hypothesis, I have plenty of writing on this. Like I write my own notes on plenty of subjects, though they're disparate. And so I wouldn't be able to pull them up, at least not cohesively right now. But by the way, David Chalmers, his gift is classification. And I think that's his secret and he doesn't even realize it."
},
{
"end_time": 2121.92,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 2093.046,
"text": " The reason why people are drawn to him is because he just says, look, there are three classes of so-and-so phenomena. There's class A, class B, class C. I think it boils down to that, and that's actually difficult to do. Anyhow, the simulation hypothesis seems to me to be these godless people trying to find God. It's like they're developing a whole framework about why something exists, and they're also putting off the question, because why does the simulator exist? There are several premises"
},
{
"end_time": 2151.425,
"index": 82,
"start_time": 2122.568,
"text": " If you have a billiard ball set, so like a pool table and you knock one of the billiard balls,"
},
{
"end_time": 2179.206,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 2151.749,
"text": " And you let it bounce around a couple times. Yeah, you can plan that trajectory. But if you want to plan it 10 moves ahead, it turns out someone waving their arm in Wisconsin influences the billiard balls trajectory. Forget about quantum mechanics, just even so definitely with quantum mechanics, but it influences it. Okay, if you want to go somewhere out to 20, I think it's technically 17. But let's even say 20 for sure. 20 balls ball bounces around this billiard ball around this billiard table."
},
{
"end_time": 2198.114,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 2180.913,
"text": " the position of the ball which even which side it hits on the billiard ball table the billiard table sorry depends on the position of an electron at the edge of the observable universe and that position is not even defined so to think that"
},
{
"end_time": 2217.005,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 2199.036,
"text": " What physics is doing is somehow computational. To me, it seems to be a large assumption and there's experimental bounds as to the digital nature of physics. Is space something discrete, the discreteness of space?"
},
{
"end_time": 2248.729,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 2219.497,
"text": " And yet they're making claims there. And then they would say, so there's so many claims. And then also, why isn't this heaven? That's something that I want to know. Like, it's a question that no one asks about the simulation hypothesis. If the simulation hypothesis is the case, why isn't this heaven? Okay, well, why does that matter? Why would it be heaven? Well, do you think usually the people who are of the computer scientist types who come up with this argument, do you think that being more rational leads to us being more enlightened? They generally do."
},
{
"end_time": 2276.22,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 2249.036,
"text": " I don't, but they generally do. So you would think that this person who made this computer would be more rational than us than us. Yeah. Why don't they fall prey to the same problem of evil? So are we saying that we're then simulated by something evil? This goes, there's a deep, deep quote about this by, by Nietzsche, uh, King Midas. There's something he wrote about King Midas. Nietzsche said this and it's like, it's a quote I think about on a, on at least a weekly basis. He said,"
},
{
"end_time": 2307.056,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 2279.48,
"text": " King Midas said to this demon, or to the devil, you can even call it the devil in this case. So King Midas says to this devil, please tell us the most best and desirable thing of all. And then the devil stood there shrill and motionless and let out a laugh saying, oh, miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship,"
},
{
"end_time": 2336.578,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 2308.046,
"text": " Why do you force me to say what would be so much better for you not to hear? The best of all things would be for you to not have been born, to not be, to be nothing. And the second best would be for you to soon die. Okay, so then the question is, why isn't that wrong? Can you rationally give me an argument as to why that's not the case? Some people do think that's the case, especially people who believe in the"
},
{
"end_time": 2362.159,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 2336.886,
"text": " problem of evil and problem of suffering. This world is so horrible that if they had an on-off switch, they would press the off button because it's not worth it. This mentality is very big on Instagram. I've noticed in Instagram philosophy, it's called anti-natalism, right? But I was born without my consent and it's easy for many people to wipe just"
},
{
"end_time": 2390.179,
"index": 91,
"start_time": 2362.449,
"text": " I met someone like this at my church and he came out of Eastern Orthodoxy, but he was saying he loves his kids too much to have them. He had this woman, they were living together, they were engaged or something and they were going to get married and we ended up talking about kids and he's like, yeah, just this world's too hard. It's too like, I love them too much to let them experience this world. And I'm like, man, like,"
},
{
"end_time": 2415.503,
"index": 92,
"start_time": 2390.93,
"text": " I was studying analytic philosophy at the time. My mind was going to designators. What are you referring to if there's a non-existent child? What do you mean? Your sperm and her egg? I was getting all there instead of being a human being and trying to flesh out the sentiment behind that."
},
{
"end_time": 2443.643,
"index": 93,
"start_time": 2416.049,
"text": " It was a really fascinating conversation, but all that to say this is a real thing that people are struggling with. But yeah, like, somehow we got to these, we got here from the assumptions of the simulation hypothesis. Sorry, I cut you off. I just wanted to throw that in that story. Oh, I know. I don't. Well, it's to speak on the simulation hypothesis and being born. That's something else that's not covered. What does it mean to be born in the simulation? Like,"
},
{
"end_time": 2466.032,
"index": 94,
"start_time": 2443.916,
"text": " How do you know when"
},
{
"end_time": 2496.305,
"index": 95,
"start_time": 2466.613,
"text": " How do you know that you can recursively do the simulation? So they say, well, look, of all the simulate, there's some argument of probability of, well, the simulation is likely to happen. And once you could simulate, you can simulate again. How do you know you can just recursively simulate? How do you know it doesn't break down at the first layer that such that the first layer can't simulate another layer, or the nth layer can't simulate an n plus one layer? Like, it's not clear to me that you could just simulate all the way down. And then another, another issue with this is, is"
},
{
"end_time": 2529.684,
"index": 96,
"start_time": 2499.684,
"text": " Oh, I've, I've, I've lost it. Well, you were mentioning, I'll give you some time to think here. Oh, yes. You got it. If you got it, if you got it, jump back in. Yeah. Why is what's simulated not considered as real? So for instance, we have a computer and it simulates something like Grand Theft Auto. And then we think, okay, well, the character is simulated. So then we think, okay, let's simulate the thoughts of the character in Grand Theft Auto. And do we say that that's less real to the CPU as the character itself?"
},
{
"end_time": 2559.07,
"index": 97,
"start_time": 2530.23,
"text": " To the CPU, it's all just bits and zeros and ones. And if we think this is all information, then what makes some information more real than some other information? That's not clear. It's not defined. At least it's not made. It's not made explicit. And so all these thoughts of we're simulated. OK, and then thus we are not real. OK, there's so many question marks that come up in my head. And these are just statements that are thrown around. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is why this is actually"
},
{
"end_time": 2587.483,
"index": 98,
"start_time": 2559.701,
"text": " I started thinking about simulation hypothesis as something to destroy because I worked in campus ministry and I meet with with college athletes and we talk about belt and chunks and we talk about some many of them are Christians who want to know what they believe and why they believe it or if they believe it they're going to college for the first time and it's like I'm on my own what do I how do I even read the Bible what do I think about it and a lot of people would"
},
{
"end_time": 2617.295,
"index": 99,
"start_time": 2588.063,
"text": " throw up the simulation hypothesis all the time. So I thought this is something I need to knock down. And then after years of thinking about it, I was like, look, this, this is a jumping off point for people who would otherwise not be interested in philosophy or, um, you know, fundamental mentality or fundamental physics or theology, people who are turned off by those words, but who are doing those things when they're considering the simulation hypothesis. So instead of me trying to steer the conversation away from it, I steer right in now and I"
},
{
"end_time": 2643.183,
"index": 100,
"start_time": 2617.671,
"text": " Hey, if we live in a computer simulation, will we have free will? What do you think? Would we be real? What, what, what's the difference between base reality particles of which this desk is made up of? And, uh, it's it and bit and, uh, you know, zeros and ones gateway philosophy. Yeah. Right. So now I see this way to lure them in. I'm trying to convince my philosopher friends who right now in philosophy, uh, the trend is public facing philosophy."
},
{
"end_time": 2672.773,
"index": 101,
"start_time": 2643.933,
"text": " And I went from just some dummy with a podcast to someone who knows how to do public facing philosophy. It's like, yeah, I guess just now because it's a cool trend, because you have words to describe it, you want to jam your abstruse philosophy into the public's eye. But if you really want to do public facing philosophy, you'll take your your work in epistemology and you'll apply it to things like the simulation hypothesis in the ways that you were just doing and asking questions of it."
},
{
"end_time": 2702.142,
"index": 102,
"start_time": 2673.217,
"text": " Hey, here's this hypothesis. What? How could we know that we were in a simulation? Here's some of my work. Here's something that I've done. Here's how I can add to the conversation and add to public understanding and help you think about it for yourself. So I'm like, that's this is my this is my gong. I'm just clanging this like we should be thinking you find there to be a through line between the people who believe in the simulation hypothesis and those who don't. So what I mean to say is, are those who don't"
},
{
"end_time": 2730.811,
"index": 103,
"start_time": 2703.422,
"text": " They tend to be Hindu or they tend to come from the upper States. I don't know. I'm saying, is there something that makes, is there some commonality between people who believe in it and people who don't that you've noticed? What I've noticed is kind of what you were saying earlier. It's, it's people who want to believe in Providence without God. So on the popular level in the philosophical realm, it's a really, it's actually a really fascinating question. Like,"
},
{
"end_time": 2759.275,
"index": 104,
"start_time": 2731.749,
"text": " You talk about Chalmers being good at categorization and he really is in his book Reality Plus. I thought this is just a ploy to get more people to read the book and I read the book myself. This is very good and he talks about pure sims and biosims, a question you were asking. A pure sim is someone who's wholly simulated. A biosim is someone like in The Matrix who has reality outside who's being deceived. I would call that deception because they think they live in base reality but they don't and in that case"
},
{
"end_time": 2786.459,
"index": 105,
"start_time": 2759.872,
"text": " I've come up with some of my own self defeat arguments for you may be in the simulation, but you couldn't know that you are. So you can't believe that. And so, um, what I found is many people who wants to, on the popular level, they want to affirm, um, they, they love the word synchronicity, right? They love, uh, from, from Jung, uh, synchronicity. Are you familiar with the word actually? Yeah, I thought you were, um, I thought I've heard you say it before."
},
{
"end_time": 2813.609,
"index": 106,
"start_time": 2786.817,
"text": " But for those who don't, it's coincidence or, you know, you and was talking with this lady and she had a dream of a scarab beetle. And then as she was saying the dream out loud to him in a session, a beetle was scratching at the window and he goes, there's your scarab beetle. And the analytic philosopher in me is like, well, that was definitely not a scarab beetle because those are from Egypt and this was not in Egypt. And it's, it's, it's a, it's a metaphor. And I, the world,"
},
{
"end_time": 2843.319,
"index": 107,
"start_time": 2813.951,
"text": " Lined up in a certain way was synchronous in a certain way to bring about this like deja vu or this feeling of providential control. So that's what I've seen. And I've seen especially in the West with people who've grown up in religious homes who didn't really know what they believe, whose parents didn't teach them, didn't didn't indoctrinate them, didn't give them the teaching. So they go, look, why would I believe this stuff? But of course, you know, I believe everything happens for a reason. So it's not God, then"
},
{
"end_time": 2873.865,
"index": 108,
"start_time": 2844.241,
"text": " It looks like it's a simulator. We probably live in a simulation. Why did Donald Trump win the 2016 election? It looked like he totally wasn't. Well, because the simulators wanted to see what would happen if the madman won the election. I heard that so much. And of course, on the philosophical level, folks like Bostrom, Nick Bostrom says, I don't think you could have any positive evidence that you do because the simulators, if they didn't want you to find out, they could always just run it back or scrub your brain. Why would the simulators allow us to even question it?"
},
{
"end_time": 2884.753,
"index": 109,
"start_time": 2874.258,
"text": " So why are they allowing, if there's a hiddenness to them, should they exist? So why not be fully hidden? What do you think? Hear that sound?"
},
{
"end_time": 2911.391,
"index": 110,
"start_time": 2885.213,
"text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
},
{
"end_time": 2937.432,
"index": 111,
"start_time": 2911.391,
"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone"
},
{
"end_time": 2963.217,
"index": 112,
"start_time": 2937.432,
"text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase."
},
{
"end_time": 2993.012,
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"start_time": 2963.217,
"text": " Go to shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in shopify.com slash theories. Um, so there's a, there's this guy, Rizvan Burke, who has written a popular book called the simulation hypothesis. He's a computer programmer. He goes in for like a, um, this is syncretism in religions where he wants to unify. Syncretism is unifying all religions. He,"
},
{
"end_time": 3018.763,
"index": 114,
"start_time": 2993.131,
"text": " Once I say, look, this has been here the whole time and we're progressing towards enlightenment. And so it's kind of a, um, a soul building theodicy. So in, in the philosophy of religion and what, you know, problem of evil literature, one of the theodicies, the justifications for God's allowing evil is a soul building theodicy. God allows the evil that he does in order to build character and develop our"
},
{
"end_time": 3049.838,
"index": 115,
"start_time": 3020.367,
"text": " Our sense of right and wrong develop our characters to grow us and shape us and mold us in ways that are not possible without the presence of evil. So perhaps it's our striving and reaching towards the unknown, which will turn us into the kind of things who could have a proper relationship or could properly handle that type of knowledge. You know, maybe if, if it was super obvious, we would take it for granted or, you know, there's all sorts of ways that they could come up with."
},
{
"end_time": 3079.172,
"index": 116,
"start_time": 3050.606,
"text": " Or, you know, Muse is a band. I love Muse. They're really good. But they came up with a whole album, Simulation Theory. And that's another thing on the popular level. People call it Simulation Theory. And I want to do some more work on theory versus hypothesis, because I think it's a hypothesis. I don't think it's a theory, but I need to. I'm not well spoken enough on that untestable hypothesis as well, at least currently. That's what I think. I mean, people point to the double slit and they'll be like,"
},
{
"end_time": 3107.551,
"index": 117,
"start_time": 3079.36,
"text": " Hey, look at the double split double slit experiment. That looks like rendering to me when you look at it. It's rendered when you're not looking at it. It's saving saving data saving, you know, compute. And so it looks like because of fundamental physics or quantum, I shouldn't say quantum physics. What was the word quantum field theory, maybe? Yeah, but you could say quantum mechanics. Okay. So because of quantum mechanics, we have"
},
{
"end_time": 3130.657,
"index": 118,
"start_time": 3108.012,
"text": " We have evidence that we live in a computer simulation because anything I'm not looking at is not rendered. How do I know that? Because of the double slit experiment. When you look at it, it's a particle and it's rendered. And so these are all popular level, you know, things that people will use to support the simulation theory. Yeah, I find that I find that a bit."
},
{
"end_time": 3163.353,
"index": 119,
"start_time": 3134.735,
"text": " Superficial. So many people, again, like you can say, well, the double slit experiment, people use the double slit experiment for to justify almost. Yeah, that's right. So whatever religious view you have, it's like there's Yeah, but but the double threat. That's a girdle is God. That's not even everyone's guys Cantor is God. Okay, sure. And there are other interpretations of quantum mechanics that have nothing to do with conscious with a collapse. So and definitely not consciousness collapsing it."
},
{
"end_time": 3193.183,
"index": 120,
"start_time": 3163.797,
"text": " And even if it was collapsed, I don't see why this randomness would be indicative of a, of a computer simulation. And also why is it so I collapse it, then I then once you observe it, you collapse it for everyone. Is that the reason why it's consistent everywhere? Why does this machine have like, so are you saying there's a finiteness then to the energy of the machine that's simulating us? Are you saying there's some finiteness at some at some upper bound? Because otherwise, there would be no reason for this"
},
{
"end_time": 3223.097,
"index": 121,
"start_time": 3193.387,
"text": " Conservation. I don't know. There's several questions that come to me as a person from a physics perspective. Yeah. Well, and this is awesome because a lot of times those are the questions that I look, I don't have the information. I don't have that background to go at it in that way. So I like the self-defeat type arguments. I like the consciousness questions and raising the assumptions of machine functionalism. And if substance dualism is true, could"
},
{
"end_time": 3251.783,
"index": 122,
"start_time": 3223.814,
"text": " Could a robot have a soul? These kind of questions because that's where I'm comfortable. I want to be a, I'm starting to be a philosopher of mind. So it's fun having these conversations with you. Cause I too bad. You're not going to be a mind fast. I know, dude. It's mind fast. Like that's where I want to be. Yeah. It was awesome last year. Um, so I'm, I'm looking, is there no chance that you'll be there? No, my daughter is supposed to be born in like two days and, uh, Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah."
},
{
"end_time": 3253.848,
"index": 123,
"start_time": 3252.056,
"text": " I mean, you're gonna record it though."
},
{
"end_time": 3283.302,
"index": 124,
"start_time": 3255.145,
"text": " One of my favorite things, I like going back and listening to the old ones, the ones from last year. And I look back for my questions right away and be like, how did they sound? Did I sound stupid? I thought you had great questions. Great questions. I think some of the best, if not the best questions. I appreciate that, man. Even better than Ben Gorsal's questions, which I think we had to cut some off. I appreciate that. I laugh. We had to cut them just because the audio wasn't good. I laugh about Ben's questions all the time."
},
{
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"index": 125,
"start_time": 3284.241,
"text": " Once a month, Ben's questions then become diatribes. So we're like, okay, Ben, like this is supposed to be a 10 second question. The mic is not handed to you because you are now a speaker for the next minute. I laughed so hard because I had known of Ben. I listened to a lot of his stuff after hearing him on lax and really liked him, wanted him to get on the podcast. He came on. He actually was just on the podcast again last week. I love him because he knows too much to have a little soundbite, but someone made the mistake of handing him the microphone."
},
{
"end_time": 3342.927,
"index": 126,
"start_time": 3314.394,
"text": " And this is like, yes, like 101, dude, if you're if you're moderating, you never let go of the microphone. You never give it to the audience. The same stand up rule, stand up rule as well. Yeah. When there's a heckler, some comedians, when you're new, you want to say, OK, then you come on stage. Let's see. No. Then you give all the you give power to the heckler. I think people misunderstand. Ben, when you look at the Ben and Yoshi Bach Theo locution on toe, there are many comments that say,"
},
{
"end_time": 3372.637,
"index": 127,
"start_time": 3343.695,
"text": " Sometimes he was putting forward something and saying like, this is ridiculous, but he wasn't saying this is ridiculous. He was saying like, you could say this and you could say that. He was giving it as examples. And some people were thinking, does Ben believe this? I cannot believe Ben believes this. No, no, no. He was citing them as examples of what other people believe."
},
{
"end_time": 3401.049,
"index": 128,
"start_time": 3373.046,
"text": " I think Ben is, well, at least in that debate, I don't like to call them debates, they're theolocutions, but at least in that theolocution, I'd say he was, he was underrated. I think you're right. I listened to that one. I really, really enjoyed it. And people say genius too much today. And, you know, maybe that's even a technical term, which has, you know, specifications. But when I think of like a genius, I'm like, that's like Ben Goertzel. He's, he's not"
},
{
"end_time": 3430.418,
"index": 129,
"start_time": 3402.022,
"text": " doesn't really belong outside of the novel. Like this guy should be an inventor in some novel somewhere. That's how, that's how you, if you wanted to come up with kind of like a, uh, kooky genius, you'd write someone like Ben Garza who like kind of messes around with psychedelics, but also can really go in deep with mathematics if you wanted, but then randomly is super good at physics and, and, and continental philosophy and Ben, well, who are you? Where'd you go? I always have to ask him,"
},
{
"end_time": 3460.009,
"index": 130,
"start_time": 3431.152,
"text": " Ben, are you, you know, is this Ben Gertzell or is this an AGI? Because I don't want to be the first guy who gets punked like that. You know, he comes up with some chat machine and and then I'm the butt of the joke because I couldn't tell there wasn't the real band. So hopefully he was honest with me. Yeah, that's fantastic. Actually, you brought up one of one of the words that I wanted to ask you about. You collect words, you like words, feel location. Can you can you help us with that? What does that mean?"
},
{
"end_time": 3492.176,
"index": 131,
"start_time": 3463.473,
"text": " So it's my way of referring to the sorts of conversations that I have on the Theories of Everything channel when there's more than one guest. Most often, it's me speaking to a single guest. Sometimes there's even lectures filmed, so there's zero me and then 100% guest. But also sometimes there's 50% one guest, 50% another. So for instance, this Joschabach and Ben Gortzel one that occurred about two or three months ago. I call those theolocutions"
},
{
"end_time": 3520.998,
"index": 132,
"start_time": 3492.449,
"text": " rather than debates because they're not debates. I don't like the format of debate personally. I find them contrived, especially when they're like, Hey, you have 10 minutes. Okay. Give your opening statement. Then you have 10 minutes. Okay. Now you have five minutes for exchange. This it's so stifling and it's, it's not how people speak. It's also anti-generation of new ideas. The reason is that you then put forward a stake in the ground with your first 10 minutes."
},
{
"end_time": 3550.708,
"index": 133,
"start_time": 3521.34,
"text": " And now you have to defend it or attack. Alternatively, you can get just two people with contrasting views to speak with one another and do so with an emphasis on harmony. And I believe there's a term called meiudic, Socrates meiudic. So the eliciting of new ideas via questioning. Now Socrates, people say Socrates was got people to generate new ideas. I don't know how much of that is just Plato"
},
{
"end_time": 3572.568,
"index": 134,
"start_time": 3551.067,
"text": " But who knows?"
},
{
"end_time": 3597.858,
"index": 135,
"start_time": 3572.892,
"text": " So Theo Locution is just the root is Theo, meaning God. And it was I was going to call them Theo Maki for God's battling one another. But then I'm like, well, it's not a battle. It's not a contest. It's just them talking. So Theo Locution. Yeah, I really like that. I we had talked about this at Mindfest. And I had I was describing my podcast to you and I was trying to say this is I consider it"
},
{
"end_time": 3623.763,
"index": 136,
"start_time": 3598.336,
"text": " Office hours conversations where I have a guest come on. I read their work or much of their work. I have some questions and it's kind of like the audience. I want to introduce you to this stuff, so I usually start out with some introductory stuff, but it's like it's a conversation. I want to discuss your ideas, so I'll often put their papers in the description. So it's like, hey, go read their stuff and then come have a conversation with us."
},
{
"end_time": 3648.029,
"index": 137,
"start_time": 3624.121,
"text": " And then you'd said the same thing. You're like, did you hear me say that? And I was like, no, I guess. Yeah. Cause I haven't heard anyone else say that. That's why I felt like, man, I, I'm connected. Yeah. Or, or you were deceiving me and you did say, so I, I should have known, but again, I was too jealous to, uh, to actually watch your stuff until after I met you and realized you're a cool guy. So after that, I was like, man, this is exactly it. This is what I think."
},
{
"end_time": 3677.722,
"index": 138,
"start_time": 3648.968,
"text": " Sometimes on podcasts, people just end up talking about podcasts too much. So I'm going to stop us if we go too far. But I do think this is one of the best things about podcasts when they're educational type podcasts, where it's like, look, I'm not, I'm not just trying to teach anyone anything. I'm just trying to have a conversation. And a lot of times these are, these are guests I would love to speak with. And now because I have a podcast, I have an opportunity to speak with them. Holy cow. That's amazing. All because I said, Hey, I have a podcast."
},
{
"end_time": 3708.097,
"index": 139,
"start_time": 3678.507,
"text": " Um, but, but I want to do some cutting edge stuff. I want to ask some questions, not to ever. I, I'm really nervous about stomping people because I'm not, if I stump someone, I would probably cut it because I don't, I'm not trying to make anyone look bad. Yeah. The goal isn't to have a gotcha moment. Yeah. And many people, especially on the more contentious topics want to get that. So you find that the criticisms are of two sorts, one that you're too kind, another that you're too harsh, another that, well, then there's the ones that I love."
},
{
"end_time": 3735.623,
"index": 140,
"start_time": 3708.422,
"text": " which are just, I spoke too much at this point and I'm like, Oh, you're right. I'm an idiot. Jeez. And so I temper those qualities or, or, or the lighting was too harsh in this direction, or I'm looking too up or I'm looking too down or whatever it may be. And I, I'm like, okay, thank you, man. Thank you. Thank you. Or thank you. Thank you, girl, whatever it is. And then there's also the sort of a, it's a rare sort, but it's, it's not a negligible sort where some people get upset."
},
{
"end_time": 3766.135,
"index": 141,
"start_time": 3736.271,
"text": " that you don't have enough of what they'll call a diversity of opinions but what they secretly mean is why aren't you interviewing me and then they become upset that you're not interviewing them and they couch it in that you're not interviewing a vast array of people but it really inside it's I need to be on your show and please let me be on your show and then you start to become mistrustful of people who are friends because"
},
{
"end_time": 3793.677,
"index": 142,
"start_time": 3766.357,
"text": " You see, at least for me, I see some people, they start off as, oh, they want to be a friend. And then they they they're like, so do you have any bookings open or how do you how does that work? And how do I come on? And then you're like, man, was all this a facade just to just to get on the show? Am I just? Well. Yeah, you understand, I do. It messes with you, it messes with you like and look,"
},
{
"end_time": 3822.585,
"index": 143,
"start_time": 3794.206,
"text": " I'm so much smaller than your channel and you're so much smaller than others, right? So like, I can only imagine as it grows, it's like, I'm sure it's hard to start. It's hard to meet new people and trust them and think like, Hey man, oh, you're in physics. Um, okay. You know, how'd you find me? This is so random that we ran into each other. Were you waiting outside? Yeah. Um, but I, I'd love it. There's only a few, well, the few times that I've spoken to people who are"
},
{
"end_time": 3842.193,
"index": 144,
"start_time": 3823.763,
"text": " Fans of the podcast, man, they're all just such cool, cool people. I'm so glad except one guy. There's one guy who was a bit odd. I was with me and my wife. I'll tell you this. So me and my wife were walking downtown and then there's this guy. We didn't even know what he was saying. He was like, he was speaking gibberish and he"
},
{
"end_time": 3871.954,
"index": 145,
"start_time": 3843.66,
"text": " He thought he was homeless because of how he was dressed and conducting himself. He was handing out something, but then also taking it back and speaking to people in front of us. And we were thinking, I don't want to talk to this person. Let's just move forward. And then he ended up talking to us. He was like, do you want I don't know if he wanted us to vote for someone, if you want us to vote someone out, if you wanted us to buy something from him, I don't know. But then I was like, no, I'm so sorry, sir. Thank you. Thank you, though."
},
{
"end_time": 3897.688,
"index": 146,
"start_time": 3872.159,
"text": " And then I started to walk away. He's like, Oh, nice podcast, by the way. Nice podcast. And I was like, Oh, and then I'm like, Oh, thank you. And usually when I say that someone they come and they shake my hand or they they talk a bit more. He's like, nice podcast. And this started walking. I'm like, Oh, thank you. And I was like leaning toward him. He's just ran. Wow. That's wild, man. Yeah, maybe it was an angel or something. I don't know."
},
{
"end_time": 3925.384,
"index": 147,
"start_time": 3898.285,
"text": " I know. I just wish I, me and my wife both were like, what was he saying? We wished we had paid more attention. I want to know what that was about. Something that's cool. Maybe you, maybe you get some of this too. So, so some people in my audience, when I do meet them, because I have so many different people on to talk about different topics, people will say, Hey, you ask good questions. And that actually means a lot to me. I really do like that compliment because it means I'm on the right track. That's cool."
},
{
"end_time": 3955.555,
"index": 148,
"start_time": 3925.964,
"text": " But when they're like, Hey, I'm a big fan of the show. I'm like, yeah, what episodes do you like? And they'll talk about it. And then I can recall that. Yeah. Wasn't that cool? Because he said this, that that made me think about this. And now I'm like a fan too. And we're both looking at it. So I don't have to be, I'd get really uncomfortable if you're just talking about me, but because of, because my show is about having other people come on, I get to stand on the side with them, you know, and be like, dude, you're right. That guy was awesome. He was, or he's nuts, you know, or yeah, I couldn't get a word in, you know, you know, so it's, it is kind of fun being like,"
},
{
"end_time": 3983.968,
"index": 149,
"start_time": 3956.084,
"text": " The podcast is ultimately for me. I am the main target audience and I've tried coming up with a target audience member and it just keeps coming back to me because I'm like, this is stuff I want to think about and I'm not going to have someone on if I don't want to think about their ideas. Yeah. I think some of those marketing exercises are a bit silly where they're like, why don't you come up with your audience profile? Name them. Yeah. And then, yeah, name this person. Okay. It's Andrew."
},
{
"end_time": 4010.06,
"index": 150,
"start_time": 3984.036,
"text": " Or it's Alex or it's Sandra. Okay, where do they live? Yeah, what? Okay, that's so unhelpful. It's just entirely unhelpful, at least to me. I'm with you on that. Once we talked about like not not having got gotcha moment type stuff. It's hard for me if someone is very disagreeable. And a lot of the philosophers are pretty cool."
},
{
"end_time": 4030.742,
"index": 151,
"start_time": 4010.64,
"text": " I think there's a lot more disagreeable people in some of the other harder sciences and there's different reasons for that. You had one with Neil deGrasse Tyson and you guys were getting into it and I watched it so many times because I loved it. I thought you handled yourself so well, man. I thought you did a really good job of being firm."
},
{
"end_time": 4061.049,
"index": 152,
"start_time": 4031.34,
"text": " Being kind of forceful, but not being a jerk and also like backing up what you were saying. I, I just had to bring that one up that I thought you did a really good job on that. And also because I'm, I'm a little bit biased against him. So yeah. Uh, yeah, that was a vinegary interview. He's a bit ornery. However, we both said on air and a bit and off air that we, we, we enjoyed it. And I actually found myself letting go with him more than any other guest in letting go in the sense of feeling more comfortable."
},
{
"end_time": 4090.794,
"index": 153,
"start_time": 4062.073,
"text": " So just so you know, Parker, I say no to almost every single interview of me. You're one of the few that I've said yes to. I just don't like to be interviewed. I feel uncomfortable. I don't have much to contribute or at least I don't think I do. And I don't I feel I'm not myself. In that interview, it's rare that in interviews, even when I'm interviewing, I'm a bit more loose, but I was super loose with that with with Neil, especially toward the end."
},
{
"end_time": 4110.896,
"index": 154,
"start_time": 4091.34,
"text": " That's so that's so cool. And it's kind of odd because he's one of the more famous people you've had. And yet you're able to be like loose with it. That's pretty cool, actually. Yeah, mainly when it comes to like, I can talk to you off. I'll tell you a bit off. Just remind me. Hear that sound."
},
{
"end_time": 4137.91,
"index": 155,
"start_time": 4111.766,
"text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the Internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
},
{
"end_time": 4163.985,
"index": 156,
"start_time": 4137.91,
"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone."
},
{
"end_time": 4189.753,
"index": 157,
"start_time": 4163.985,
"text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase."
},
{
"end_time": 4219.138,
"index": 158,
"start_time": 4189.753,
"text": " Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash theories. Let me let me think for a moment. So remember how I earlier I talked about the quality that I have of pausing in my speech. It's in part what I said, but also because I would rather speak"
},
{
"end_time": 4246.971,
"index": 159,
"start_time": 4219.514,
"text": " personally with diffidence, so lack of confidence, then I would by stating something as an categorically as in the separation. And part of the reason is that one people will believe whatever you say more, the more confidence you have in it. Okay, that's just psychologically demonstrated sorry, it's demonstrated in the psychological literature, the more firm you are, the more people will ascribe truth to it. Okay, number two,"
},
{
"end_time": 4274.497,
"index": 160,
"start_time": 4248.302,
"text": " The more extroverted you are, and also low neuroticism, the more people ascribe higher intelligence to you. And so in other words, I'm an introverted person. And if I can lean in that, which is, which is honest to me, rather than go in the other direction, it would mean that people would underestimate me. And so a part of me is okay with that. Maybe even once that number four, if I say something with conviction,"
},
{
"end_time": 4304.718,
"index": 161,
"start_time": 4276.374,
"text": " Even if I don't believe it, I'll start to believe it afterward. So I'm extremely careful with what I say with conviction, because there's a large chance of Peterson said this, Jordan Peterson said this, and I don't agree. He said, if you if you have something to say, then silence is a lie. I think that's especially not the case for people who are disagreeable. And the reason is, to me, don't think that what you substitute that silence for isn't going to be a greater lie than the silence."
},
{
"end_time": 4332.995,
"index": 162,
"start_time": 4306.869,
"text": " So though I do like Cunningham's law, so Cunningham's law just for people who don't know is if you state something, you can you get corrected by the audience. So part of me, if I'm 80% sure about something, there is there are a couple of times where I may state it firmly in order to offload my cognition. So for instance, if I was to say,"
},
{
"end_time": 4361.22,
"index": 163,
"start_time": 4334.804,
"text": " I'm not sure. Let's say loop quantum gravity starts with Wilson loops. Okay, I don't know if it does. Let's just say I just want to say that because then I could search that up. Or I could allow a physicist to correct me say actually loop quantum gravity starts with the semi classical limit and then you quantize from there and blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I'm like, okay, great. So that's one reason that's one pro for speaking without hesitation. And"
},
{
"end_time": 4385.384,
"index": 164,
"start_time": 4364.48,
"text": " I'm trying my best to say phrases in a way that I have not said them before so that I'm not repeating myself."
},
{
"end_time": 4411.971,
"index": 165,
"start_time": 4385.606,
"text": " because the more that I repeat myself, the more I get into a groove. And so I'm trying to find a fresh way of expressing a thought, even if it's a thought that I've had before. And that's super difficult, at least for me. I'm with you on that. And in apologetics world where people are defending the Christian faith or having debates, formal debates, like you had mentioned, not liking before, which I'm on board with you there."
},
{
"end_time": 4437.244,
"index": 166,
"start_time": 4413.285,
"text": " A big part of that is rehearsing the phrases that you're going to say and you can see people slip into it. And, um, Rogan, Rogan talked about this, um, the signature in the cell. He had, I forgot his name. I should know his name right now, but I don't, I have his book over here, but anyways, he had him on the podcast and Rogan kind of dismissed a lot of his"
},
{
"end_time": 4464.309,
"index": 167,
"start_time": 4438.063,
"text": " his guests arguments because he said it, it felt like he was doing bits like a comedian. It felt like he was slipping into free program. Interesting. And in one sense, I'm like, look, he's a professional and he's trying to, you know, he's trying to explain things to you in a way that you can understand. And he's rehearsed them. But I, I do feel a little bit of what Rogan was saying where it's like, it, it feels a little bit less authentic if you have what you're going to say in mind already."
},
{
"end_time": 4485.094,
"index": 168,
"start_time": 4464.667,
"text": " The difference is that what you mentioned, am I here with you? If it's a conversation with two people, then"
},
{
"end_time": 4515.486,
"index": 169,
"start_time": 4485.606,
"text": " You don't want the other person to, sorry, you don't like it when the person gets into presenter mode. You feel like it may as well be PowerPoint slide presenter mode. That's a good word. You want it to be an exploration, both of us. Another another reason is that even if they're trying to or attempting to describe a diamond. If you attack it from other angles, not only do you bring the other person along on the journey, but you you elucidate the diamond, because I spoke about this with, well,"
},
{
"end_time": 4544.838,
"index": 170,
"start_time": 4515.708,
"text": " I spoke about this before that if you take a pyramid shape and you shine a light through the top down to the bottom, it would look like a square onto the bottom. If you go from the side, it looks like a triangle. If you go from an askew side, it looks like a ice cream cone. So you can't always infer the shape of the object from its projection. And it seems like what we're doing when we speak or talking about projections, I mean, sorry,"
},
{
"end_time": 4569.821,
"index": 171,
"start_time": 4545.196,
"text": " are just projecting and the reason why I say I seem like is because I'm harkening back to earlier when I said it could be that we're just these pale imitations of something else but it could also be that we're so close to it that like it's right there like the love is right there we're not we're not actually approximating something we're being extremely specific and we don't think we are we know the truth we just don't know that we know the truth"
},
{
"end_time": 4599.377,
"index": 172,
"start_time": 4571.698,
"text": " But anyhow, as many angles as one can get for me, well, not as many, but many more angles help elucidate the phenomenon or explicate it. That's good, man. I think that's what makes for good podcasting. Another thing that I appreciate about you and I promise I won't just continue complimenting you the whole time, but one thing I did want to call out because I saw it and it's benefited me is your vocabulary. I think I've heard you talk about this on like a Q&A maybe or something and you've"
},
{
"end_time": 4626.544,
"index": 173,
"start_time": 4599.787,
"text": " You describe why you take thoughtful pauses. You describe why you're not embarrassed to use a larger vocabulary. And I really appreciated this. I'm not very good at it myself, but I'm working on it. I can't remember like the exact reasoning, but you said you don't blush at it because you're trying to use them and you're trying to like own them. You're trying to use them not in a pretentious way, but it's like we don't need to be"
},
{
"end_time": 4655.589,
"index": 174,
"start_time": 4627.227,
"text": " Embarrassed by using the appropriate word if it's an uncommon or a big word, you know, and so even a word that reaches beyond your current grasp is fine, even if it's Inorganic even if it feels inorganic at least to the viewer or to the listener part of like words are"
},
{
"end_time": 4679.957,
"index": 175,
"start_time": 4656.8,
"text": " Our petons, so I've interviewed this guy named Alex, sorry, Alex Honnold. He's the guy from Free Solo, the documentary. Petons are what you place in the wall when you're rock climbing, maybe has other uses, but you place them in the wall. And now you can get to that part easier because there was no hold before. So words are like petons, even Douglas Hofstadter mentions this, he may even have used the word peton."
},
{
"end_time": 4710.776,
"index": 176,
"start_time": 4681.357,
"text": " That they allow you to reach places that you couldn't reach before and that and to do so more easily. And OK, how do you see this? Well, imagine if someone had a had a wand that they said, I'm going to remove. 1000 words from your vocabulary, is that OK? You'd be like, no, please, I wouldn't be able to have the same models or see the world in the same way. So what to think about the addition of new words and how do you add new words? Well. It's going to feel contrived at first."
},
{
"end_time": 4730.06,
"index": 177,
"start_time": 4711.254,
"text": " But it's something that takes, at least for me, an extreme amount of effort. But also at the same time, there are words that I know and that you know that are words that are uncommon that someone else may not"
},
{
"end_time": 4759.497,
"index": 178,
"start_time": 4730.64,
"text": " No, and so I have rules. I have rules for myself. If I'm in an in-person conversation with someone, I'm not going to bring up a word that I feel like is beyond what they know in order for them to say, but what does that mean? Or just believe me because it sounds, oh, that's such an intellectual word. He must know what he's talking about. So no, I'm not allowed to do that when I'm in person. If it's in writing, then yes. And part of the reason is because no one feels foolish for not knowing some concept in writing because you can just look it up yourself privately when an email is sent."
},
{
"end_time": 4788.951,
"index": 179,
"start_time": 4759.753,
"text": " And if it's in podcast form, well, then I'm going to assume that the interlocutor, the person who I'm speaking to has a similar range of concepts. And even if they don't, it doesn't matter. Anyone can press pause and check it out, check it on their own. And in that case, you've helped them because you've given them a new vocab word to go look up. I. Yeah. And so it's my way of like, look, to speak to someone. I'm a lonely, lonely person, Parker. I don't have to. I'm I. So part of I talk about this plenty, but"
},
{
"end_time": 4815.009,
"index": 180,
"start_time": 4789.667,
"text": " There's this guy. There's this guy. There's Leonardo da Vinci. There's some guy. Yeah. Yeah. And he's I resonate so much with them because he unites disparate fields like you mentioned he's syncretic but not with religion with other with other domains. Okay, so I relate to that. I like overviews. I'm a generalist. I'm a generalist specialist. So people say jack of all trades master of none. I think you could be a jack of"
},
{
"end_time": 4821.766,
"index": 181,
"start_time": 4815.572,
"text": " of most trades in the master of some."
},
{
"end_time": 4851.544,
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"start_time": 4823.422,
"text": " He was a lonely person, at least that's what I gather from his writings as well. Didn't have connections. Like I feel like I he worked super hard. I feel like I just work, work, work. I have no connections. I sometimes get extremely resentful and bitter about that. I look at other podcasters. I'm like, man, you're in Texas. So you're in L.A. like you're where all the action is at. Yes. And and I'm just hearing and sometimes I'll interview a large guest. They won't even so much as tweet my interview with them."
},
{
"end_time": 4880.265,
"index": 183,
"start_time": 4851.544,
"text": " Generalist,"
},
{
"end_time": 4906.067,
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"start_time": 4880.759,
"text": " Well, okay. Yeah, I think it was the loneliness. And the point is that look, the only way that one can expand their concept, their conceptual space or the or even their vocabulary, which are related,"
},
{
"end_time": 4933.592,
"index": 185,
"start_time": 4906.459,
"text": " is by speaking, you have to say it like you can write it to yourself, but you have to say it. So you have to say it aloud and to say to use any new tool like juggling, whatever it is, you're going to drop balls. You're going to fumble. And you just have to allow that. I think the fumbling allow yourself to fumble 50 times, 50, like you can count it by the 50th time, you'll be proficient. Yeah. This brings up"
},
{
"end_time": 4963.575,
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"start_time": 4933.831,
"text": " So I want to get to the God question because my audience will, we've talked about it a little bit, but I want to get there in more depth. First, I just have to touch on this point. When I write a paper, when I write a theology paper, I have a different personality than when I write a philosophy paper. And it's a weird thing. Different words come- Do you have a different personality? Yeah, I use different words. It's still me, but it's, you know, we talk about that diamond or whatever, it's a different angle on me."
},
{
"end_time": 4992.176,
"index": 187,
"start_time": 4964.275,
"text": " And it's different when I podcast. It's different. It's different when I wrestled in college and I did jujitsu and that brings out a different aspect of me. There's like all these different aspects that are brought out by different things. And so the language that I use is different. If I'm just even the people groups that I hang out with the jokes that I make, you know, if I'm, if I'm with my Indian friends,"
},
{
"end_time": 5017.398,
"index": 188,
"start_time": 4992.466,
"text": " and I meet one of their friends, I joke about being an uncle, like look at my uncle mustache, you know, I mean, I look like all the uncles because that's within, you know what I mean? It's within. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just different. And I wonder if you've had that experience or us, our age groups, I think we're close in age, there's like authentic authenticity is really big thing. And to the point of becoming like a negative meme,"
},
{
"end_time": 5043.097,
"index": 189,
"start_time": 5017.773,
"text": " I wonder if, oh, is it a negative meme? Yeah, well, from the older millennials and from the boomers, for sure. And from some of the Gen Xers, they're like, OK, you got to be authentic. No, dude, we all have had to put on a brave face and go to work and be a different person. You guys are all obsessed with authenticity. And I'm like, look, I don't know, man. I'm not saying they think that when we say we want to be authentic, we think we don't have any changes to make."
},
{
"end_time": 5073.865,
"index": 190,
"start_time": 5043.899,
"text": " That, you know, I'll just bear all my warts and everything and be who I am and never change who I am. And we're like, no, I just, I just, I'm going to throw up if I have to play your weird games anymore. If I have to like play a game where I'm intentionally lopping off most of my personality in these situations, I'm going to throw up. I can't do it anymore. But I do wonder, like, um, I wonder because you interact with so many different people, is it important to you to be the same person interviewing different people or, or"
},
{
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"start_time": 5074.718,
"text": " Are you like, look, each conversation will be a new Kurt in a sense. I'm I'm fairly consistent. But I'm not so I'm not a fan of on of authenticity as an unbridled good as much as many of our generation is. I think that it becomes a trap like there's an authenticity trapped of people saying that of people thinking that they're"
},
{
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"start_time": 5103.336,
"text": " Reflexive first responses are more them than something else that's measured. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, coming from the guy who's got measured speech, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's an act of deliberation to find something that's true inside. It's not just, well, I'm going to be honest. That's a synonym for I'm going to be blunt."
},
{
"end_time": 5159.411,
"index": 193,
"start_time": 5129.804,
"text": " And I'm a disagreeable person. And so look, I'm actually doing something that's that is valued in our society when I'm being when I'm falling prey to my my impulses and instincts. So there's a word called sublimation, which means to direct the expression of your instincts to a more culturally socially acceptable form. We tend to think of like, look, we have different personalities, like these like different clothes in a closet"
},
{
"end_time": 5186.459,
"index": 194,
"start_time": 5159.667,
"text": " I'm going to be this person today. I'm going to be this person.\" And then the uncultured person, we would say, you think you're being authentic when you choose just being whatever you want. And then the Nietzschean would say, you have to invent your own clothing, like you can't choose any of those. And then the Buddhist would say, well, none of those are the true you. Maybe it's the naked one, maybe that's the authentic one. But then the Buddhist would say, actually, that's not even you, realize there is no you."
},
{
"end_time": 5214.701,
"index": 195,
"start_time": 5187.108,
"text": " But there's also it could be the case that the relationship between the clothes is more you than any one of the clothes or still you as the chooser. Even in tandem with the clothing is the is the true you. I don't think that well. It's not clear to me that. And by the way, I'm not authentic. All I say every aspect of my life is completely inauthentic, except when I'm with my wife and I talk baby talk like I'm just like,"
},
{
"end_time": 5244.019,
"index": 196,
"start_time": 5215.026,
"text": " I'm not going to do now because I'm just so embarrassed. But like I just speak in one syllable words and I don't not even words most of the time. And that is the true me when there are no cameras. That is me. And I'm 100 percent myself. And I'm just this we're both these cute, cuddly people with one another. And then but I'm consistent everywhere else. Yeah. So all this is just some affectation to hide my horrible inarticulacies."
},
{
"end_time": 5269.377,
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"start_time": 5244.923,
"text": " That's so good, man. I resonate with that. That resonates with me, with my wife, man. She's like, dude, if only people knew. Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing. Yeah, that's so wild. Well, I want to get to the God question. Not too much longer, but I wanted to get there through"
},
{
"end_time": 5298.729,
"index": 198,
"start_time": 5269.872,
"text": " The philosophy of mind. So we talked about being authentic and such and what you are. I wonder, at this point in your studies, what do you make of yourself? What do you think you are? Do you have a particular philosophy of mind? Do you lean one way or the other? Do you think you're an immaterial substance? Does your mind terminate on your brain? What do you think?"
},
{
"end_time": 5325.606,
"index": 199,
"start_time": 5300.026,
"text": " treacherous question. Like, that's a question that I don't want to think about, but I think about incessantly. Like too much. Yeah, that's that's the formidable one. I'm gonna have to skip the question of what am I? Okay."
},
{
"end_time": 5356.715,
"index": 200,
"start_time": 5326.8,
"text": " And no, no, no, but I can answer like other questions that you asked right there. That's good. That's good. So. Do I believe in? There are a couple there are a couple aspects of dualism, so there's property dualism, correct, and then there's. Substance dualism and then there's there's many different types of substance dualism as well, but yeah, yeah, it was so hilarious to me that some people will use, oh, but that's dualism, haha."
},
{
"end_time": 5385.247,
"index": 201,
"start_time": 5357.858,
"text": " As if there's just one sort of dualism, like Daniel Dennett when I was speaking to him, he was not liking the whole, what is it like to be a bat? Because he's like, because that's a dualist position that you could just be here and then you can transport yourself to a bat. Haha. But what do you mean dualist? Haha. It's not clear to me that the dualist position is wrong. It's not clear to me that the modest position or the non-dualist position is correct. But I would say I'm a 157th the list. So there are trial lists and there are dualists."
},
{
"end_time": 5413.046,
"index": 202,
"start_time": 5385.913,
"text": " I'm a 157th list, meaning like, I'd say that in tongue in cheek way, but there's a reason. And that's my present deliberation. So it could change for it oscillates on a well, on a moment to moment basis. But in terms of large swings, maybe on a quarterly basis every three months. So that number is pretty specific. Is there a is there some equation you're about to pull out of nowhere?"
},
{
"end_time": 5438.029,
"index": 203,
"start_time": 5413.814,
"text": " Yeah, there's some reason to that number. But I'll, I'm also a secretive person. Parker, that's good. So I've secretive about aspects that probably shouldn't be secretive about and I'm not quite sure why it's not privacy. And it's not it's not like I'm creating an air of mysticism for the sake of it."
},
{
"end_time": 5458.814,
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"start_time": 5439.565,
"text": " I don't know, my brother always told me this, he would always make fun of how I would keep secrets. And that when he would find it out, it'd be so trivial. Like, I would tell him he wouldn't know what like, let's say, hey, Kurt, what time do you tend to wake up? I can't tell you. Why? Why can't you tell? I'm sorry, I just I just can't believe that."
},
{
"end_time": 5484.701,
"index": 205,
"start_time": 5459.036,
"text": " Secrecy in spiritual formation literature, it's like one of the one of the spiritual practices"
},
{
"end_time": 5513.319,
"index": 206,
"start_time": 5485.128,
"text": " Um, it's not secrecy in, in hiding aspects of you that would be important to share, but it's like just keeping something between you and God, just like practicing, not, not speaking your mind all the time. Like that's super, isn't that weird? Like when I, I never had thought about that, I always thought, you know, it's wrong to have secrets and kind of like what you mentioned with Peterson earlier, where it's like, yeah, if you have something to say, if you have a truth and you're not sharing it, it's a lie. And I,"
},
{
"end_time": 5539.804,
"index": 207,
"start_time": 5514.07,
"text": " I think he probably had someone in mind that is like timid or overly, overly meek, right? Cause you don't, you don't see the brash lady who's yelling at her server and be like, you know what? That was a great job. You really spoke your truth to that guy. You're like, no, you should just eat in that one, dude. You just like, I don't mean eating the food, just eating the insult or eating it, you know? So yeah, it was, it was fascinating to do some of that and see like, Oh, secrecy. It's okay to just have something right now and, and wait"
},
{
"end_time": 5559.121,
"index": 208,
"start_time": 5540.384,
"text": " For me, it means waiting until someone pulls it out of you. Maybe I've studied something ad nauseum and someone's talking about it and it's like, please ask me. I need you to ask me so I can be in this conversation, but just not offering it unless I'm invited in. And then even when you're invited in,"
},
{
"end_time": 5579.804,
"index": 209,
"start_time": 5559.855,
"text": " Not just brain dumping all over them, information dumping all over them in a way that's going to glaze them over and they don't want it anymore, but slowly giving it out in a way that's not putting you up on a pedestal. There's a proverb about let someone else speak good of you and not your own mouth. Yes, yes."
},
{
"end_time": 5609.838,
"index": 210,
"start_time": 5580.111,
"text": " So, so in Mark, in the Bible, that's, by the way, my favorite book, even though I haven't read all the books and I don't even think I've read one book fully. But Mark is one of my favorites because Jesus and firstly, it's the most plain spoken Jesus. And then he gets more and more elevated up until John, where he's become equivalent to God. But in Mark, some people are like, are you the son of God? And then he's like,"
},
{
"end_time": 5639.019,
"index": 211,
"start_time": 5610.708,
"text": " What do you think? In other words, he's like, oh, no, no, then then the Pharisees even say to him, like, you say you're this. No, you're the son of man or son of God. You're the son of God. And he's like, so you say you've said it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that to me is the opposite of our current insistence that we're allowed to choose our own identity. Jesus is like, I'm not even going to tell you, like you decide what I am."
},
{
"end_time": 5669.872,
"index": 212,
"start_time": 5640.998,
"text": " My identity is not for me to assign. Yeah. And, and in, in both ways, right, there's like a liberal view and a conservative view on that. And both are him not making his own identity. The conservative way is like, no, he said his father in heaven has given him his identity and he only speaks what he says. And then I don't, the liberal way would be like, yeah, he's not God, but he's a moral exemplar."
},
{
"end_time": 5692.295,
"index": 213,
"start_time": 5670.452,
"text": " When you speak to Dennett and you speak to Chomsky, if you don't ask them religious questions, you would never know they're militant atheists. I said something about Jesus and he's like, Jesus was a good person, actually a great person. And then he's like, Christianity was necessary for the Enlightenment."
},
{
"end_time": 5718.422,
"index": 214,
"start_time": 5692.824,
"text": " He says, I'm like, and then he also has views about about truth being pragmatic. So truth is what he doesn't say loving. But again, that's a religious, a religiously tinged word. So he probably avoids it. But he says all that he could say outside of love, like it's for the positive, it's for the good. And it's only truthful if it is. I was so surprised about that. Yeah, these are"
},
{
"end_time": 5743.387,
"index": 215,
"start_time": 5720.572,
"text": " These are good things to draw out of people who in a debate, you'd never hear it. You'd never hear that because he's got to represent this position. He's got to represent what he came on to talk about, but not, um, you know, exploring new, new territory or being honest with giving, giving the other side a win, you know, or, or anything like that. Um, I wanted to."
},
{
"end_time": 5771.323,
"index": 216,
"start_time": 5746.049,
"text": " I wanted to get to the God question through, through the man question, like what, what we are, what, what we take ourselves to be, but something that's, that's hard for me to understand is, um, like human value outside of a theistic perspective where humans are made in the image of God. I understand a lot of pragmatic arguments."
},
{
"end_time": 5801.988,
"index": 217,
"start_time": 5772.619,
"text": " But it's a lot of people think that we're on a continuum with animals and we're just, um, one degree this way, you know, and there's not like an analytical gap. And some of those people will then become vegans and be like, look, no suffering at all. Others are like, no, I eat a pig. And I'm like, well, you eat pigs, but you don't eat human children. Cause I think you recognize there's a difference. Like what is that difference in my, in my belt and shong it's because you're made in God's image. He's, he's made us with."
},
{
"end_time": 5830.384,
"index": 218,
"start_time": 5802.381,
"text": " certain intellectual capacities to recognize things. Maybe it's tacit knowledge. You talked about knowing something, but not knowing why you know it or knowing that you know it. Um, so maybe it's part of like the, the, the, the Pollyannian tacit dimension or something like that, or, or maybe it's ingrained in, in our soul. If we are substance to us, something like that. But I wonder what, like, do you, do you believe there is a God? This is like a tough question to be asking you. You said the, the one in my question is hard."
},
{
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"text": " With TD Early Pay, you get your paycheck up to two business days early, which means you can grab last-second movie tickets in 5D Premium Ultra with popcorn, extra large popcorn,"
},
{
"end_time": 5889.94,
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"start_time": 5860.845,
"text": " T.D. Early Pay. Get your paycheck automatically deposited up to two business days early for free. That's how T.D. makes Payday unexpectedly human. I don't believe... See, I wouldn't... I wouldn't say that I don't believe in God."
},
{
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"text": " Sometimes I"
},
{
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"text": " I pray before meals. It's not even clear to me what I'm praying to. But I think that that's something that. I think that's a practice, that's a practice that's enriched my life, by the way, like heavily. I think that's something more people, I think that should be socially acceptable to do that. You don't see that at restaurants almost anywhere. No one just take a moment, take a moment before you eat."
},
{
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"text": " Okay, okay. Now, now you need no one does that. About this, about this, that we're just on the continuum with animals. It's not clear to me that how much when you go in one direction being an extreme of a degree, like we always say, it's a different degree, but not different of kind. Does that become a difference of kind? If you're so far"
},
{
"end_time": 5989.224,
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"start_time": 5969.087,
"text": " Advanced and one in on one spectrum. I don't know. I think to me the greatest philosophical there are two greatest philosophical problems of our era. For me, for what I dealt deal with one is sorites sorites paradox. And so that comes into play here."
},
{
"end_time": 6019.514,
"index": 225,
"start_time": 5990.623,
"text": " And for those who don't know, it's just how many grains of sand you need to become a heap. I guess you look at a heap of sand, you say that's a heap. But then if you were to start from one grain at a time, you say that's three grains. That's not a heap. When is it? Is it at 10? Is it arbitrary? I think the easiest case to say is that it's just arbitrary and linguistic. But I don't think that that's I think that we're just not giving that question. It's due. And I think that at the root of almost every philosophical problem that I see and that I'm interested in is"
},
{
"end_time": 6046.032,
"index": 226,
"start_time": 6019.957,
"text": " The ship of Theseus or Sorites paradox. And the other philosophical problem I can't recall now, the ship and Theseus and Sorites sororities to me are the same, because it's like, well, when does when does something become something else? I've also I've always I've been wondering, Parker, if I could extend string theory. So I'm doing an iceberg on string theory. And that's the most effort that's gone into any video on toe. So it's a whole podcast that's"
},
{
"end_time": 6067.415,
"index": 227,
"start_time": 6046.8,
"text": " The iceberg format and if people are unfamiliar, what it is, is at first you go into about five to seven layers and you start at the surface level of some idea. So let's say consciousness. That's another one I want to do the consciousness theories. So what are there? So the surface levels are there's dualism, then there's, well, there's a soul and then there's"
},
{
"end_time": 6097.739,
"index": 228,
"start_time": 6068.609,
"text": " that you're not conscious is an illusion. Okay, then layer number two is where more of the people who are researchers in the field, sorry, not researchers, but people who look into the field know about so maybe substance dualism or property dualism. I think that would be more like layer three. But anyway, as you get lower and lower, perhaps by layer four, you get to where only researchers like only PhDs know about these concepts. And then even level six and seven are so obscure that like 10 people know about and they're even dark."
},
{
"end_time": 6123.439,
"index": 229,
"start_time": 6098.626,
"text": " So I'm working on one for the mathematics of string theory, something I'm toying with. It doesn't make sense, by the way, what I'm about what I'm about to say is that look, a string is an extended object. Firstly, you think of an electron as just a point. So string theory's innovation is, well, why don't we give another parameter so that it becomes like a line? Okay, and when I say parameter, I mean, like a number like you can extend the object."
},
{
"end_time": 6151.561,
"index": 230,
"start_time": 6124.275,
"text": " Okay, and you can extend it. So it's one object and you can also have closed objects like closed loops. I'm wondering if there's an extension called worm theory. So it's a disk instead of and there is this in a sense because there are different brains. There's like D two brains and D one brains. Is it like an extended closed loop? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's like a disk throughout time. But then there's also something by Putnam, by the way, who believe that what is us is not"
},
{
"end_time": 6177.261,
"index": 231,
"start_time": 6152.329,
"text": " us in any moment but us extended through time. So look, we think it's quite obvious that we're spatially extended, like we're here, I'm here, I'm this long. Okay. But we have so many questions about what is us through time. And the Buddhist answer is that there is none and so you're impermanent and thus it's an illusion, which by the way implies that anything that is not existing in time is elusive."
},
{
"end_time": 6205.572,
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"start_time": 6177.619,
"text": " Sorry, it's an illusion. I don't know if that's the case. They're using the word illusion as a synonym for it being not permanent, which isn't the way that we use it in our everyday context. I'm saying that because some people just think, oh, it's Buddhism. It must be correct because look, I'm so Western Lee enlightened that I have even critiqued my father of Christianity and I'm willing to accept the enemy of Buddhism. And so look how, yeah, you get the idea. But they also have a Western interpretation of the East and that itself is watered down."
},
{
"end_time": 6233.148,
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"start_time": 6207.261,
"text": " So Putnam would say it's quite possible that what is us, what defines us is not just you in any single moment, but the whole worm of you through time. Yeah. We call those space time worms in, uh, in metaphysics. Uh, Oh, so this, this is another one, man. You're all over the place. You're, you're, you're jumping onto stuff. It's so good. Yeah. David, David Lewis is, is another one, another philosopher who talks about that. Um,"
},
{
"end_time": 6263.831,
"index": 234,
"start_time": 6234.428,
"text": " And you're, I believe it's called segments. People have different words for it, but I have, I'm like, what are you? And some people would say you're the collection of your space time worm. Like that's what you are. Others, others might say it's you, you take a slice, a time slice. And that's who you are is who you wholly are at that time slice. Um, Parker, I have to stop you because I gotta get going, man. I'm so sorry. There's another meeting. We went, we went, we went already longer. Yeah, I'm sorry, man. We went away longer."
},
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"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what to do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
},
{
"end_time": 6309.036,
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"text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal."
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}No transcript available.