The David Pakman Show - 5/18/23: Troubling Dianne Feinstein audio, DeSantis loses BIG

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Tim Maudlin, Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University, joins David to discuss the origins and foundations of metaphysics -- Audio is released of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein seemingly not understanding or remembering that she was gone from the Senate for 3 months, generating another round of demands that she resign -- Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' two endorsements this week both lost as his polling continues to collapse -- Adam Mockler interviews Donald Trump supporters at the Iowa rally that ended up being canceled, and it's out-of-this-world insane -- Will Cain serves as Tucker Carlson's latest replacement on Fox News, and it goes really poorly -- Republican Congressman Clay Higgins is caught on video committing criminal battery against an activist who tried to ask questions of Republican Congressman Paul Gosar -- The Eggman calls in to say that recent urine-drinking guest Christopher Key has convinced him on the topic of urine drinking -- On the Bonus Show: Grocery store employee sues Rudy Giuliani for $2 million, Montana becomes first US state to ban TikTok, Noam Chomsky had financial dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, much more... 🩺 Wild Health: Get 20% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://wildhealth.com/pakman 💰 Public.com: Start getting a 4.9% yield on your cash at https://public.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. We start today with some extraordinarily sad audio that has been released of a conversation with Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. This is a really tough story to do because this is Speaker 1 Speaker 3 Speaker 4 Speaker 5 Speaker 6 Speaker It appears as though Senator Dianne Feinstein, back from three months out of the Senate due to health issues, has no memory of having been gone for the last three months. Calls for her to resign are surging again. And we have to be able to, you know, on the one hand, we have empathy for Dianne Feinstein and her family and as people, of course. And we also recognize that. It is not clear Dianne Feinstein is currently fit to serve in the United

States Senate. Now, for those of you who will write in and say, David Trump wasn't fit to serve and he was president for four years, That's not really what this is about. So we're going to play some audio. There were reports of this conversation. We now have the audio. Senator Dianne Feinstein, back from an absence of several months while battling shingles, is interviewed by Benjamin Oreskes of The Los Angeles Times, and she appears to have no memory whatsoever of having been away for those three months. How are you feeling? I'm feeling fine.

I have a problem with the leg. The leg? What's wrong with it? Well, nothing. Nothing? It's anyone's concern. OK. But mine.

What is the response from your colleagues been like? The well wishes, what have you heard? What have I heard about what? About your return. How have they felt about your return? No, I haven't been gone. Okay. You should follow me.

I haven't been gone. I've been working. You've been working from home is what you're saying? No, I've been here. I've been voting. Please either no or don't. What do you say to Californians like Ro Khanna who say you should resign? So at that point, Feinstein whisked away. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna again repeats his call for Dianne Feinstein to resign after

this incident. SFGate dot com reporting Ro Khanna was the first member of Congress to call for Feinstein's resignation. And he is echoing that call a day after reporters had this encounter where she appeared to not remember that she had been absent for three months. This is a really tough situation and it's it's getting ugly and there really aren't great options. And the best option that many are talking about is that it is Feinstein's family who should convince her to resign. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, would get to select a replacement. And I don't remember based on it's

in California, whether there is or isn't a special election depends on the number of days until the next election, I believe, because it's more than six months until the 2024 election. There would be a special election, I think, although I may be wrong. We'll double check that. But if it is not the options, according to the U.S. Constitution for removing a senator from office are expulsion or resignation and expulsion would be a formal vote with two thirds of the members of the Senate present and voting in favor of of removal. Resignation is, of course, voluntary. It doesn't require a vote. It's just up to the senator. And there is no provision for a recall.

This is a really sad and tough situation. And as I've said before, Dianne Feinstein has an incredibly storied career in the Senate. She is the longest serving Democratic member of the Senate right now. And I believe the oldest by by a few months older than Chuck Grassley, she'll be 90 in a few weeks. And this has been going on for years is the truth. OK. And at some point you have to just say this is what it is. Diane Feinstein reportedly regularly doesn't remember meeting people that she sees regularly and works with regularly. There are all of these examples of Dianne Feinstein at Senate hearings

where she will read a question off of a piece of paper. It's not super clear if she totally gets the question. But after the witness answers, she asks the exact same question a second time. This isn't serving anyone. This isn't serving anyone. This isn't serving democracy. This isn't serving the Democratic Party, who's had judicial nominations from Joe Biden held up because of Feinstein's absence. She's on the Judiciary Committee. So at the end of the day, I don't know what the mechanism is here, but we have to be able to look at a situation and assess it for what it is. Now, people have been writing to me saying, David, there should be an upper limit on age for senators or an upper limit on the number of years you're allowed to serve or whatever.

Listen, maybe, maybe those things can all be explored where we are right now is that this is the situation and growing calls for Feinstein to resign. The audio is troubling and it's sad and it's where we are right now. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis had both endorsees lose on Tuesday. And of course, the failed former and wannabe future President Donald Trump is trying to capitalize on this. The truth is Trump's trothing aside. The truth is that Ron DeSantis is not only increasingly low in the polling. He is also visibly losing, notably losing political capital as two endorses have lost. Let's look at exactly what happened. The Hill reporting DeSantis sees both endorsed candidates lose. DeSantis stepped into the Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary to back former U.N.

Ambassador Kelly Kraft, endorsing Kraft on Election Day a little bit late in the game as polling in the run up to the election projected Kraft lost to Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Trump backed Cameron. Whatever you believe about Trump's endorsement record, and it's quite mediocre overall, this is very clearly a public win for Trump. The other example, of course, is what was the other example? I actually don't have it here. Who else did the did say? I don't know. Oh, oh, I see here. Democrats flip the mayor's to say I don't know. Oh, oh, I see here. Democrats flip the mayor's office. Republican Daniel Davis succeeds.

Mayor Lenny Curry, DeSantis backed Davis. But Curry won there as well. So Trump immediately seizes on this, as I would be doing as well, because this just looks very bad for DeSantis. Trump posting to his platform, Truth Central, quote, Wow. In a big upset, the sanctimonious backed Republican candidate for mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, lost. This is a shocker. If they would have asked me to capital endorse, he would have won easily too proud to do so. Fools. This is a big loss for the Republican Party.

Remember, Rob only won because of me. He now calls Ron DeSantis Rob. Then continuing to post troth's quote, DeSanctimonious lost Jacksonville in Kentucky last night. Not good. And then lastly, quote, Congratulations to a quote star in Kentucky, Daniel Cameron, who easily won the Republican nomination for governor. He had my capital C complete and total endorsement. The sanctimonious backed candidate came in a distant third.

Ron's magic is gone. He also lost shockingly in Jacksonville last night, mayor. And the truth is, you know, Trump lies all the time. But Trump is rightly assessing that DeSantis is I was going to call it a campaign, but it's not yet really a campaign. DeSantis is would be campaign is in complete and total freefall. I reported to you yesterday that DeSantis is polling had collapsed all the way down to just over 20 percent in the Republican primary. And overnight, the Santas is now below 20 percent, just barely at nineteen point nine. And as I've said before, with Trump surging now at 56, remember a few weeks ago, Trump was at forty three. If Trump's at forty three, you look at that and you

say, hey, if I just get the non Trump vote, if Trump has forty three, there's fifty seven out there available. If I can get that, I can win the primary without taking a single vote from Trump. Trump now is all the way up to 56 percent. When Trump is at 56 percent, you now have to contend with the reality that if you scoop up somehow all of the non Trump vote, you only have 44 percent. And so then you have to justify how can I take votes from Trump? And I don't know how DeSantis does it. That's where we are right now. The DeSantis campaign truly in freefall.

That being said, interestingly, the reports are that DeSantis still plans to announce a candidacy. And as I've said before, I can see both sides. On the one hand, I don't see what the Santa's path to victory is right now. On the other hand, if you're DeSantis and you have sycophants around you, as many of these people often do, you might be saying to yourself, the fact that I even have 19.9 percent and I haven't announced tells me this may be my shot. Sure, I could wait until 2028 when I guess DeSantis would be 48 years old. I could do that. But anything could happen between now and then. I might be trying with five percent in 20, 28. I have 20 right now.

Maybe Trump gets indicted again or again or again, gets arrested a couple more times. It pulls him off the campaign trail. Anything could happen. Maybe I need to be there, sort of like the Seinfeld episode where I think it was Jerry who says, listen, I'm just going to be there for her after some kind of a breakup and then I'll just be there. And who knows if she's interested, then I'll just be there. This may be, quite frankly, DeSantis his approach. I only have 20%. I don't know how I'll take supporters from Trump, but if things go wrong, I will just be there. I don't think it looks

good for DeSantis. Reports are he may announce within the next seven to 10 days. We will watch it. One quick reminder. Monday, Memorial Day, we are doing a one day membership special. The goal is to kickstart membership and we will be doing it with an incredible discount code. If you'd like to be notified of how to take advantage of this membership special on Monday morning Memorial Day, all you have to do is get on my mailing list at David Pakman dot com. One of our sponsors today is Wild Health, founded by two emergency room physicians. Wild Health takes your genetics and your biometrics and your lifestyle data to really tailor suggestions to your exact needs in terms of nutrition and exercise and sleep and supplements and

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Join Pakman dot com coupon code. Twenty four starts now. Read about the benefits. Do the thing. All right. This is going to be super interesting. Adam Mockler, who has a YouTube channel, recently went out in Iowa at the failed Trump rally. Remember the one that got canceled either because of weather or because not enough people

showed up. Trump was scheduled to speak and Adam spoke to Trump supporters. And this is really, really, really good stuff. But it is very scary. The topic of attitudes towards trans people came up significantly. Conspiracy conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking came up significantly. So let's just get right into it. Adam does a really good job here.

This is Adam Mochler, who you can find at YouTube dot com slash at sign Adam Mochler. Let's just jump in and brace yourselves. OK, this may not be appropriate for children. And I think I should say. What percent of Americans do you think are transgender? I would say before it was cool to be transgender or before is probably like I would say one point five. And now it's probably like 20 percent.

OK, this is something we see when anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists are asked, how many Jews do you think there are? And very often they'll say, you know, in the world they'll say, oh, it's like five percent of the population or it's 10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent. And then you go, actually, it's it's zero point two percent of the global population is Jewish. One of the things that's common is folks who see groups as problematic will dramatically overstate their prevalence in the population.

The Muslim Islamophobic folks will say, oh, I don't know, like 10 percent of the U.S. must be Muslim or something like that percent of the U.S. must be Muslim or something like that. Really common thing. Twenty percent. It's still zero point five percent. OK, OK. I was pretty close on one point. Pretty. Let me ask you this. If an adult goes to the doctor with gender dysphoria and they try to decide on a treatment, do you think the government should be able to step in and stop that? Oh, no, no, not not if they're paying for it. As long as, you know, they have their own insurance that they're paying for. I don't think a state, you know, health insurance should have to pay for, you know, your gender

reassignment. So you're OK with people getting gender affirming care, though? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As long as I'm not paying for it. Now, this sounds sort of open minded, right? I mean, OK, but what's interesting about it is this whole thing of am I paying for it?

He says as long as state insurance isn't paying for it. Well, you know, one of the realities is the way insurance works. Everybody pays in based on what actuaries believe is expected to be the total amount of spending that's going to be done on procedures and services of different kinds. In a sense, even with private insurance, if gender affirming care is covered, everybody who's part of that risk pool is in a sense paying for it. Now, I know this guy doesn't understand that he's not thinking of that.

And he says it's not it's not the procedures. I have a problem with it's who's paying for it. But the reality is that it's a little more complicated than just as long as I'm not paying for it. If insurance covers it at all, then it's being paid for in shared responsibility by everyone participating in that risk pool. But you know, OK, it's it's at least he's open minded and saying it shouldn't be illegal. All right.

Let's continue. Then then Adam speaks to a woman who says the country is more divided than ever and then immediately brings up the Biden crime family, which isn't a thing with absolutely no understanding that part of the reason the country is divided is because people like her are saying things like Biden crime family. She also says cannabis causes mental issues. Let's listen. I did now. Then that was when Martin Luther King marched when I was a kid. Blame. Let's talk blame. Yeah, let's talk blame. Have you ever heard any Democrats say that it was

their responsibility or they did this? Sure. They did. Have you looked at the records, the actual information that we found about Biden and his crime family. We've found about the Biden crime family. They would eliminate so many of the drugs. I believe that children are able to get a hold of nowadays. There would be far fewer mental issues. What kind of drugs? Pot for one. You really, you disagree with smoke? You best your sweet Biffy. I grew up with kids that when it was just coming in and I saw them make complete idiots of themselves. Now on cannabis,

it's not a lie to say marijuana can have negative effects for some people on mental health, depending on the person, the amount, the frequency of use, the type of marijuana product in some people. Cannabis causes anxiety or paranoia. There are instances of temporary psychosis that can be caused by cannabis in very, very high doses. The truth is that all these things are very rare and we have lots of legal products like alcohol that are arguably far worse, but they actually are really morally concerned that you have to understand this. If you show my guesses, if you showed this woman the data on alcohol and cannabis and you said, hey, but look at alcohol, there is a moral connotation that folks like her

have when it comes to cannabis. And that's that that's that's a big part of this. Let's continue now. I'm sort of skipping around now. We go. Oh, this is really wild. OK, let's just jump into this one, then we'll talk about that. Transgender has just been publicized, just like other issues that they try to distract us from when it's more of a mental issue, mental health issue. Well, it's a mental health. The argument here is we've been distracted by trans. Trans really is just a mental health issue.

OK, well, let's explore that issue. Then when the follow that treatment would improve these people's quality of life. So you're for gender affirming care. No. Trans is aming care. No. Trans is a mental issue. OK, so then we should provide the treatments that reduce the mental issues, right? Yeah. Oh, like gender affirming care. No, not that. There's tons of studies that people who receive gender affirming care have a way better quality of life than people who don't. Are you just seeing it from the one side or are you seeing both sides of it? Now that's an interesting question, right?

Randomized controlled trials, peer reviewed show this, but her question is, which side are you getting that from? Well, it's what the science shows. Well tell me your side. No, I'm just saying, have you seen the research on just the one side or are you seeing it from both? This is that that's such a critical thing here, right? The idea that it's all just opinions.

OK, yeah, research. But it's like one person's opinion, research and another person's opinion, research, as opposed to we have a scientific foundation for how we can evaluate what is to be believed that is separated from our opinions about it. Very difficult for lots of these folks to understand that idea. It's all sort of an opinion, isn't it? Opposite of gender affirming care, I guess, would be conversion therapy. And there's zero studies showing that conversion therapy works.

Actually, that increases the suicide rate of trans people. Right. I don't know the statistics. Now now she doesn't know. And this is a very common retreat. You go forward and you assert, assert, assert, assert. You then have pushback, which is, well, here's the data. I don't really know the data.

Let's move on that. I'm just going by, you know, my own thoughts of, you know, what makes you think Trump will be able to beat Biden in 2024 when you already lost him in 2020? Well, he didn't lose to him in 2020. You don't think so? No, it was completely rigged. Biden is just a puppet anyway. Now, this is where it gets really crazy. I dare you to follow this. So so far, she's asserted Trump one and Biden's a puppet. But who's the puppeteer? Get ready to I hope people like pretzels because this is a completely total logic pretzel.

Who's who's controlling him? The white hats, the white hats, the white hat. Can you define who they are, who those people are? That would be our military, our generals and our current and sitting president of Trump. He's our commander in chief still. You think Trump is still a sitting president? Yes. You think Trump is currently making all the decisions in the country? Yes. So would you blame the current inflation on Trump? Yes, because this is where we would have been.

All right, at least she's consistent. She's saying, listen, Trump's the president and everything that's going on can be blamed on Trump. Okay, at least that's some level of consistency. I'm not blaming him, but in order for everybody to actually start waking up and seeing what was gonna come down the pipeline, if Hillary would have gotten in and they would have been able to do their new world order, this is what we were gonna get. In the border crisis. That's also on Trump. Have you been to the border? No. Have you?

No. So how do we actually know if the if the wall was actually done? How are they getting in? So this is where we go into something that unfortunately happens often when folks like this are are questioned about their beliefs. They go to how do we know they become almost metaphysical. They become philosophers of epistemology. How do we know anything? What is the nature of reality? They become Deepak Chopra all of a sudden. Is it really a crisis or is it just crisis actors?

I don't think there's a crisis at the border. Honestly, you think people are at the border acting like immigrants? Correct. Well, what's the purpose of this? To wake more people up to what? To seeing we would be going socialists in a communist country. So now it's just a word salad. Now she's just it's coming out of her like a projectile vomit socialist, communist crisis

actor. This is barely English. It's just words. It I recognize the words, but it's not making any sense. That's not what America is about. OK, that's really serious. And what I want people to think about is, OK, it's funny, it's entertaining. OK, that could be you know, they talk about teachers left in Dawson.

That could be someone I don't know what what job this woman has, if any. That could be someone's teacher. That could be I mean, like, I guess she could be your accountant. All right. As unhinged as she is, she might be able to hold it together and be a CPA. I don't know. But there's tens of millions of these folks. Now we go to another guy who goes into election conspiracies.

Let me get past past his introduction. Here's a guy who he has his own series of January 6th conspiracy to get the Democrats and all the deep state out. We need to take back the country for the deep state out. We need to take back the country for the people. Peacefully, no violence. No violence. So you disagree with what happened on January 6th? It was not an insurrection. We were set up. By who? Democrats in a deep state and people was there, FBI was- You don't think there's a part of individual responsibility to do with it though? So if you make the decision to walk into the Capitol, break glass into riot, don't you think it might be justified to be charged with something?

Yes. If you break the law, of course there's consequences to breaking the law. Now you get a group of people, I don't care who it is. It could be Christians, whatever. You get someone or a couple of people in there that are instigators. They're going to get the whole crowd to go. Even Christians. I love that. Even Christians might be able to either convince or be convinced in this sort of mob mentality. But you know, these are sort of like it's again, it's this projectile vomit. Who did the setting up on January 6th? Well, he mentions FBI and Tifa Democrats.

I think he said they all, I guess, work together or separately with the same goal. It was extraordinarily organized. It makes no sense, but it doesn't matter. It takes one flame to get the can of gas to burn. Now there was people there. Yes, that should not have done what they did. The destruction should not have happened. If you get caught on it, prosecute you.

All right. So now we're going to go to another woman who says the election was stolen because the election was stolen. You think so? I do. How come every time they brought it to the courts, all the evidence was rejected immediately because the courts are rigged. A lot of those judges were appointed by Trump, though. They still have a lot of undercurrent things that are going on.

There's a lot of undercurrent things that are going on. Simple. How does Adam not understand? So you think Trump appointed over 60 judges that were part of the swamp? Maybe. Doesn't that reflect poorly on Trump's judgment? No, because look, look at all these people that will wear masks. Yeah. We're saying a full two. No, no, no. What is she talking about this?

I've talked about this before. These are endless special pleadings. Right. That I've given the example before. Hey, you know what, guys? Right here in the studio with me, there's an invisible tiger. It's here. You just can't see it.

So I say, oh, OK, well, it's invisible, but it still has mass. Right. So let's put baby powder on the floor. So even though we can't see the tiger when it walks around, it'll move the baby powder and we'll prove that it's here. No, it's an invisible. Weightless tiger. OK, well, so how about this? It needs to eat, right? Let's put some beautiful stakes down for the tiger. And then even if we can't see the tiger and even if the tiger doesn't have any mass and isn't going to disturb the baby powder, we'll see the food move. It's going to need the food. No, it's an invisible, weightless tiger

that also doesn't eat. And then you go further and further and further and it doesn't matter. Now, the look on this woman's face, you see see she sort of is starting to realize she seems kind of like a moron. Not all of them have that recognition necessarily. All right. Last guy here. This guy says there should be no trans people. Now, how you get to that, I don't know. I don't know what he means. There should be. Well, who's going to get rid of them? I don't know. But they get into an interesting discussion actually about gender identity that almost like it almost goes in an interesting direction. Take a look at where humanistic. Yeah, I think there should be no transgenders.

I'm pretty sure there's only two different genders that are born and that gives two different types of sex. So. I he's pretty sure there are only two types of genders that are born and that gives you two types of sex mixing genitalia with gender expression, admits he's only pretty sure this is what we're dealing with. And listen, he gets to vote and good for him. Right. I'm not suggesting restrictions on voting. We just have to understand these folks vote. And if we don't vote, these are the sorts of ideas that end up being reflected in the

leaders that we choose. But even with there being two genders that can still fit under the transgender worldview because you're just switching from generally masculine features to feminine features. A woman has female reproductive organs and a male has male reproductive organs and that's about it. Do you look at people's genitals when you're figuring out whether they call them sir or ma'am? Sir, please show me what you have there. Or do you generally look at a vague set of social characteristics? You can just by walking around, you can tell by the way their voices, you can just just what's more about your morals than what's morally right in this world. So you can look at people and know if they're transgender based off their morals.

This is funny, but it's very sad. It's very sad and it's very scary. You know, the world looks at this and we have a lot of international viewers. Every time we do this, people write to me. They say, David, what has happened to the United States? Is it an education issue? Is it a cultural issue? This is crazy. A person knows if they're men or women and that they know their morals and know if it's right. And I totally agree. To be honest is a big thing um we're all about honesty in this country so they know that i didn't know not from looking at the last presidency i could have fooled me they're a woman nor generally you'll know if they're a woman

just by the way they walk the way the way they're they're this sounds pro-trans to me though so you're saying if somebody knows they're a woman and they walk around with features that are looking like a woman, then they can be considered a woman. No, they a woman went over with a woman and a male. He doesn't want to go over it again. I think we agreed on that. So there it is. Really, really good job there by Adam Mochler. And we'll link to Adam's channel. This is good stuff because he's he's going a little deeper than you sometimes see people go. And one of the things I've told you sometimes happens in political discussions is folks can go one talking point deep or maybe two and then it all falls apart. And then it's just words come out that they heard Trump say, but they don't make sentences that we can identify in any reasonable sense. Really scary.

It is funny. It is funny, but it's scary and sad more than anything else. Thank you. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zipix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zipix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes. They might be able to help you, too. If you're a smoker or a vapor, give Zipix toothpicks a try. Your lungs will thank you. Go to Zipix toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPX

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It's great to welcome to the program today, Tim Modlin, who's the founder and director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics and also professor of philosophy at New York University. Really appreciate your time today. Thanks for having me. So let's let's get into metaphysics a little bit and give some of some in our audience some tools with which to understand this concept. Very often people on the Internet love making videos about metaphysics and they seem to

have no idea what we're even talking about. So so, you know, one analogy that I've used and you tell me whether this gets us in the right direction, if we want to understand how the moon got to exist and where it is, gravity would be part of of understanding that metaphysics would look at how did gravity get created? Was there a before gravity? Is that is that an example of what we talk about when we say physics versus metaphysics? Well, unfortunately, just the language physics and metaphysics makes it sound like what you just said. And a lot of people use it that way. Historically, that's not what it is at all. OK. Metaphysics. There was a document that came down to us from Aristotle that a later editor called

the metaphysics. Aristotle never used the term. And what he's doing in that is looking at what we call ontology or just the general theory of what exists carried out at the most general high level scale. Right. So not, gee, is there a rock over here? But are there rocks at all, and what are rocks made of? So from that point of view, it's not that you go beyond physics to do metaphysics. I actually have a book called The Metaphysics Within Physics, because physics makes

postulates about, at a fundamental level, what exists. That's part of metaphysics. Now, maybe not everything is physical. So metaphysics would go further than that if they're non-physical things. But part of it is just the basic picture of what exists physically. Now, if gravity exists physically, okay, yeah, gravity is part of it. Is there a story about where gravity came from? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe that's just kind of ground level stuff. Once you get down to the law of gravity, there's no further account of that. That's the bottom level of everything. When we think about things like the relationship between mind and body, which can have religious

aspects to the discussion, scientific, philosophical, consciousness, free will, these sorts of things. Are these all conversations that include both what we might consider traditional hard science as well as metaphysics? Or are they only that depending on the preconceived notions one brings to the conversation? Speaker 2 No, I mean, the sorts of questions you're asking, certainly the mind body problem involves fundamental metaphysical questions. If you think there is a non physical soul, some people do. Some people don't. If you do, then there's an issue of how it can interact with a physical body. Right. And that the interaction would have to go both ways.

If you think there isn't, then you have to say, well, how is it that just physical stuff, doing something could give rise to consciousness and awareness? That's a very deep problem as well. So there's no easy answers here. There are different answers. And each answer kind of involves its own questions that that that run on from it. So, yeah, I mean, metaphysics certainly gets involved in those kinds of questions.

When I've talked to scientists about the question, what was there before the universe? Answers obviously are always couched and we don't actually know. But one question is, was there really a before the universe, which is a hard thing to think about because it seems, if you understand time linearly, that there must have been some before some beginning or something like that. What what does metaphysics have to add to that question? Well, it's not that metaphysics is going to ride to the rescue and provide answers to this. I mean, the questions you ask, again, are good questions. Is there anything before, let's say, this universe? Now, one possible answer to that is, yeah, there was another universe. And before that, maybe another one. And before that,

maybe another. And then there's a question of how one arises out of another. Maybe you say, as you say, one possible answer is, look, there was no before this universe. And that might be because time goes on forever, or it might be that time doesn't even go on forever. But nonetheless, there's only so much of it. You sort of there's only a limited amount. This is the kind of standard Big Bang theory. You go back 13.7 billion years and there is nothing before that. So it's not that that came out of anything earlier. There was no earlier. These are different answers, right? And cosmologists have proposed different theories that answer these questions in different ways. It's not as if metaphysicians have some magic wand that they're going to give you the right

answer. If you're well trained in philosophy, you can at least delineate. Look, there's this answer. There's this answer. There's this answer. Let's see how they differ. Let's see what observations might bear on this and questions like that. I think one of the areas where laypeople sometimes come up against, I don't know if frustration

or despair or existential crises is the right term. But with some of these questions, what becomes tough is that it can seem as though you either have to say, I'm going to try to answer some of these questions simply with science, because that's the only place where the scientific method exists. And that's all I'm comfortable with in terms of confidence in what we either know or don't know. Or I have to look at a different path altogether, which would be a philosophy, metaphysics,

etc. And that can be frustrating because some people feel like I'm kind of pre selecting where the end point for me is going to be in some of these questions by choosing one of these two paths, almost like a fork in the road. Is that an understandable frustration? But more importantly, is it an accurate critique or observation maybe is the right word. So I think you have something particular in mind there. And let me just point it out because you say, oh, there's the scientific way and then there

other ways. Well, I'm saying if someone feels that way, are they right or is that not the right interpretation or understanding? The first thing I would say is sort of any discipline where you provide what we think as good reasons to believe what you're proposing. Yeah. How is the kind of science sometimes that's experimental or observational. But notice when we divide the university

into the arts and sciences, the math department's in the sciences, right? Not because it works on observations, but because it works by arguments, by proofs, right? You say, look, I have a reason that I can give to you for accepting this answer. From that point of view, anything that really has good evidence, anybody that's putting forward good evidence for what they're claiming is doing

science, whatever else you call it. And if something doesn't count as science, then you're just saying, well, I'm putting forward opinions and I have no good reasons for them. And I would say, well, that's not such a great thing to do. Now, there are limits to science. There may be things that you'd like to know that we're just not in a position to know. And if there are, there are. I mean, you just have to live, you know, live with the limitations of the world. What are in your mind some of the most interesting questions or problems that are being looked at in terms of metaphysics and philosophy right now that may be maybe familiar to our audience or may not be. Well, since I specialize in foundations of physics, the one you mentioned, like how is there

a beginning to the entire universe, cosmos? And if so, what was it like? And could there be anything that we would count as an explanation for why it was like that? I think that's a very interesting question. There are much more detailed questions about how to understand quantum theory, what picture of the world that you can really comprehend could result in the kind of phenomena we see in the lab that we associate with quantum theory. They're very interesting. I mean, I could go into detailed questions there, but I'm sure that would take us beyond the scope of this this interview. But I work in foundations of physics. So, of course, I tend to those. There are people who are worried about how did life begin, right?

That's how could living things have come out of non-living things? And that's a very interesting question. I mean, and I've heard interesting answers having to do with how clay forms and, you know, various kind of inorganic structures that could help create the sorts of complexity that we need for life and so on. That would be in biology. An interesting question. So there are lots of them in different places. I happen to live in the in the physics part of it. I recently read a couple of books about solipsism. And one of the claims that all of these books made was that, unlike with many other philosophies of reality and time, there's been no refutation, satisfactory refutation of the idea that all we can really be certain of is our own existence right now as we are thinking about it, that even our memories that we believe

we have experienced, we may not actually have experienced them. They may have been implanted in our brains as you and I are speaking today. In other words, I don't know that I really had an apple an hour ago. I have the memory of having had that apple and that there's been no satisfactory refutation of that doesn't mean that it is that it is true to to to choose this when it comes to thinking about time and the passage of time, et cetera. What what does someone who do the does the work you do think about such an assertion? Well, let me just check, because there's a little linguistic question I have. You said you read books about solipsism. Did you mean that or skepticism? Because it sounded like you were. I meant solipsism.

You meant solipsism. Well, solipsism is a view. It's a very definite view. It sort of says the only thing that exists is me. I mean, that that OK, that's a possible view. It's kind of crazy. I mean, there's so even someone like you is comfortable refuting it by saying it's kind of crazy. Well, you would say if you want by a refutation, an absolute proof, you're not going to get it. OK, but it's not that the solipsist has an absolute proof of any sort that solipsism is true.

So you can't you can't give that standard to your enemies. You say you enemies, you have to prove your case beyond any doubt. And me, I can just say whatever I want. So it's a question of burden of proof in a sense. So, you know, solipsism, I mean, the view that only I exist, I think, has literally nothing to say for. Of course, there are things other than me. There are tables and chairs. And if I leave the room, as Hume would say, if I leave the room and the fire is burning and I come back later, it's a bunch of ashes. Why? Because it kept burning all the time when I wasn't there. I mean, that's the obvious explanation. It's not, you know, you can say I could make up, maybe I'm in the matrix, maybe there's some ETs.

You can always make up stuff. Yes. But there's no reason to believe the stuff you make up. And the whole picture we have of the physical universe hangs together and allows you to make predictions and explain a lot of stuff that requires there to be more than just me. So I would say all the evidence is in favor of it not being just me and none of the evidence. Now, it's not an absolute proof. OK, so you're just asking too much for an absolute proof. Reasonable people don't demand absolute proof. They they adjust their beliefs to where the weight of the evidence is. With many of these questions, I've asked folks like Lawrence Krauss, for example, about it and others. Do you believe that it's a matter of time until we answer some of these toughest questions? Or do you think

it's possible that they will never be answered? Speaker 2 I think you have to be prepared for both outcomes because we don't have the resources to answer that. The best we can say is that, you know, people sometimes say, look, human intelligence evolved among ape-like creatures on the savanna. It allowed them to survive. It gave enough intelligence to deal with that world. What makes you think that that makes you smart enough or have the right kind of intelligence to deal with questions of cosmology or whatever? On the other hand, you certainly have to say, well, we've done awfully well. I mean, we've extended science down to microscopic and subatomic scales and to cosmological scales. And we understand a lot about galaxy formation and everything. So certainly our intellectual abilities go far beyond what we needed just in order to

survive. How far will they take us? Will they take us to an end, as it were, theory that's just the right theory that always makes the right predictions? Or will we get stuck? I don't know. I mean, the only way to find out is to push forward. Right. The only way to find out is to figure out what we don't know now and investigate the possible ways to go forward and push as hard as you can to make a prediction about whether we'll succeed or not. You know,

I guess I tend to be kind of optimistic, but I but that's just a character trait of mine. That's not an argument. I share that cautious optimism that that some at some point, what are the timescales we're thinking of, though? I think this is where it becomes a tougher question. We've been speaking with Tim Modlin, who is a professor of philosophy at New York University. You have an ongoing project you wanted to mention as well. Is that right? Yes, I did. Just since I have people's attention, if you're interested in these issues, I am the founder and director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. We are at the moment trying to raise money on a GoFundMe to buy a location where we can exist physically. So if anybody would like to help us out, we would appreciate any help you can give us. You can just Google John Bell Institute to our website or the GoFundMe John Bell Institute and it would come up.

That's John Bell Institute dot org as the website. Tim Modlin, really appreciate your time and insights today. Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain an emotional connection with your significant other. You might work in different places at different times. There might be a kid in the way. It can be hard to find time for date nights, especially because kids demand so much attention, which is why I love our sponsor paired, which is the app for couples. The app will prompt you with a daily question or a game or a guided conversation, all designed by leading psychologists. And the point is to just have a deeper connection

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shakeup coming to the Fox News primetime lineup involving Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham and others. Those have not yet been confirmed by Fox News as of this moment. So let's wait on reporting those. What I do want to tell you is that the latest attempt at a Tucker Carlson replacement since Tucker Carlson was fired, of course, Fox News has gone through a number of possible trial hosts. This latest guy is the worst of all of them so far. So as a reminder, in the immediate aftermath of the firing of Tucker Carlson, Brian Kilmeade from Fox and Friends took a shot at it. Totally milquetoast. Just not good. Then Lawrence Jones came in. Lawrence Jones, notably not ready for primetime. He tried to come out aggressive, asking tough questions. He looked visibly confused about the questions he was asking his guests.

It was a really big self-owned. Then Trump's former press secretary, Kylie, Kayleigh McEnany, a completely self-absorbed to a delusional level, playing videos of herself speaking at some former RNC or whatever. Really, really bad. And now Fox News this week tried out Will Kane. I'm going to show you decoding Fox News, which is a great Twitter account to follow. Decoding Fox News made a 90 second summary of a nine minute monologue that Will Kane did at the top of last night's show, a misogynistic rant blaming Jill Biden

and Giselle Fetterman, the wife of Senator John Fetterman, blaming them for forcing Joe Biden and John Fetterman to take jobs they can't handle, attacking Senator Dianne Feinstein. It's endlessly just that this was the worst one yet. Not looking good for Fox News. If this is the best they can come up with pressure. That is so hard to watch. He's incoherent. And if we're being honest and not worried about being kind, that was one of his better moments from yesterday.

That man should not be allowed to operate a power tool or drive a car, much less govern this country. Whoa. But as sad as that is for Fetterman, it's more sad for the people of Pennsylvania. How did 2.5 million people vote for Fetterman? Because the alternative was Dr. Oz. What is going on here? Who is using these people? They're useful idiots for whom?

For Jill Biden? For Gisele Fetterman? For Chuck Schumer? Who is using these people? They're useful idiots for whom? For Jill Biden? For Gisele Fetterman? For Chuck Schumer? We here in the United States of America were once led by strong men. In America, we were led by visionaries who not only won a revolution against an empire, but had the humility to limit their own power through eternal principles enshrined in a constitution. Dear God.

Titans. Historic. Titans. And globally, we were led by men who, between glasses of brandy and scotch, stared down not only a tyranny, but also weaklings on their own team in order to win a world war. Hard. You know, we once had Washington and Jefferson in Madison, and now we have Florida legislatures doing tick tock dances on the well of their legislature body. Now we have Biden. Now we have Fetterman. Now we have Feinstein. And yes, for those individuals,

they are the victims of ambitious spouses, but Speaker 2 it's all their spouses that are to be blamed. So top line could not be less newsworthy, could not be more of a snooze fest to see Will Kane host Tucker Carlson's old show. Here's one other funny moment. He tried to defend the actions of suspended NBA player John Morant. And without even looking at notes, Stephen a Smith explains to Will Cain the totality of what's gone wrong with Moran and it will. Cain just has nothing to say. See on the side of your screen, he's flashing a gun and Instagram live video. I said earlier

this week, Stephen, a that I don't think he should be suspended for what amounts to dumb, but legal behavior. Everyone, Stephen A., everyone has disagreed with me on this count, and I know you do as well. Yeah, because, you know, you're usually ill-informed when it comes to sports matters. That's not your forte, even though you sound great talking about it. But then when we get to the facts, you always got some slippage there. Here's the reality of the situation. He's been involved in several instances. He was involved in an incident last summer where he allegedly got into an issue where a high school prospect came out of his house with a gun. There was another issue involving a friend in Indianapolis where after a game

some kind of laser, red dot laser, was being pointed in the direction of some folks with the Indiana Pacers party. Then there was the issue he got suspended over for eight games that cost him over $600,000. Now there's this. He had met with the commissioner, Adam Silver, the National Basketball Association, looked him dead in his face and essentially told him, this is not me, this is not indicative of my character, and it won't happen again. And yet turns around and this kind of thing happens. So when you're looking at it in a vacuum and you're thinking about the fact that no laws were broken, no crime was committed. And obviously he plays in the state. I don't know which car where he was in terms of when he was in the car for the latest incident, but he plays for

the Memphis Grizzlies. That's in Tennessee. And obviously in Tennessee, you don't even need a permit to carry. So he didn't break any laws or anything like that. But the NBA is a private industry and they don't want to be associated with that because they remember what it was like in the 80s when the show when the league was on tape delay. Will Cain desperate to try to make some point, but he just knows nothing about this. And Stephen Smith completely schooling him. So bottom line, not ready for primetime. Another failed attempt at replacing Tucker Carlson, who's relaunching his show on Twitter,

I guess very soon. It will be very interesting to see what becomes of the new Fox News lineup. But I don't think Will Kane is going to be the steward of that new primetime lineup and ratings. Not good Republican Congressman Clay Higgins, who describes himself as being for law and order, appears to have committed criminal battery on video attacking an activist. Take a look at this media reports. House Republican manhandles protester who tells him, get off me. You're hurting me.

Clay Higgins physically removed a protester from a press conference with Paul Gozar and Lauren Bobear on Wednesday as the man screamed, get off me. You're hurting me. Several recordings showed Democratic socialist protester Jake Burdett being pushed by Higgins out of the D.C. event as the congressman said, you're out. We have the video. Lawyers have reviewed this and have said to me they believe this is criminal battery. Take a look. You're out.

You're out. You're out. You're battery. Take a U.S. congressman touching, touching. So for people just listening, what we have seen and are still watching here is Congressman Clay Higgins, a radical lunatic Republican, grabbing this individual, forcing him out and away in the sort of bear hug shove. And I mean, listen, if you if you're really about law and order, that's a crime. It's battery and it's criminal when it's done with the intent to harm. OK, unclear, injure, not really clear, annoy, absolutely, or offend another person without their consent. Jake Burdett clearly did not consent to being manhandled in that way.

When we talk about criminal battery, it doesn't matter if it's light or it's severe in terms of the contact. If it's unlawful and offensive and meets those requirements, then it is indeed criminal battery. If you spit on someone after an argument or something like that, even if they're not injured, if they did not consent to that, then it's a form of criminal battery. And it's usually a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail or a fine. States have different degrees and classifications of battery. You can have aggravated battery, sexual battery, family violence, battery, etc. But if you are for law and order, you can only see that and say that was a crime committed

by the Republican Clay Higgins. Now, Mehdi Hassan had a good tweet about this where he said if a Democratic member of Congress, if a squad member did this to a conservative protester, it would be 24 seven on Fox News for days. And that's absolutely right. Imagine for a second. OK, it would be 24 seven on Fox News for days. And that's absolutely right. Imagine for a second. OK, just imagine for a second if AOC had done this to some conservative protester, imagine that it was a female protester, right to two women. It would be 24 seven on Fox News. So I'm not confident that Clay Higgins is going to be held accountable for that,

but certainly not indicative of law and order. That's for damn sure. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. You can call the voicemail any time of day, any day you want. The Eggman called in. This is sort of funny. The Eggman seems to have been convinced by urine drinker Christopher Key on Tuesday's show. This is funny. Hey, I think you are a little bit hard on Christopher Key yesterday. I drink my urine seasoned with Nesquik powder.

There are one glass, two scoops in Nesquik. It's almost like a chocolatey lemon shake. It's perfect unless it's fresh right out of the spigot. Then no seasoning needed. But it's a really hard trick leaning back like that. It's called the bubbler. Shalom. All right.

So the Eggman, of course, is joking, but I have not gotten this sort of reaction to any interview that we've done for a really long time. People disgusted, excited, titillated, unable to stop laughing. People wrote to me saying they listened to this during that interview, the Christopher Key interview, while they were driving to work in the morning and had to pull over from laughter, particularly when I said I had spotted more as a Manuka honey guy for sweetening the urine rather than stevia. But anyway, that'll be a conversation for a different day on sweeteners. Wild stuff, without a doubt. We have a fantastic bonus show for you

today. We will talk about Rudy Giuliani being hit with yet another lawsuit. How many are there at this point? We also will discuss Montana becoming the first U.S. state to ban tick tock. And we will talk about the latest revelations related to Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Epstein. They are becoming of concern to many in our audience. All of those stories and more on the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Join the money making on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. I will see you then or tomorrow on the Friday.