Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Parker Interviews Curt Jaimungal on the Simulation Hypothesis, God, and Authenticity

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Parker's Curt Interview: https://youtu.be/SGl0uoBzIpkParker's Podcast Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ParkersPensees

Last week, Parker Sedekes interviewed me for his philosophy YouTube channel called Parker Penceys. 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 Penceys. I'm your host, Parker Sedekes, 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 Weltanschauungs 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 uh 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 and tell them to come back on for part two if you guys like the podcast then please support it on patreon you can find the link in the description or become a youtube member both of those are amazing ways to help me continue pumping out content like this so let's jump in with kurt jai mungle of theories of everything all right well kurt thanks so much for coming on the podcast man yeah thank you so much for inviting me, man. Yeah. And it's been, so we met like a year ago at MindFest 2022, the inaugural one. It was awesome.

And- 2023. 23, dude. That's right. It's 24 now. My goodness. Holy cow. Yeah. Well, 23 was the year of ChatGPT. That's right. So it was that year. That's the year we'll all remember. Yeah, that's wild.

Even though I just forgot it. But it's so good to have you on here, man. I love what you're doing. And 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 podcaster 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 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 DeMungo. And it's insane, dude. It's so good. The range of topics you cover while still talking about theories of everything is insane. Well, jealousy is my primary motivator, so I can 100% align myself with that. I understand it. That's good. That's good. It's good to know I'm not alone here. So, Kurt, many in my audience are interested in philosophy of

religion. Others are just straight up philosophy, secular philosophy or Christian 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 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 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 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 biology which becomes chemistry which becomes physics and that's the base it's not even math that's under physics even though some people think it is it's physics that's at the base i don't buy that anymore and i don't think many physicists buy that but it is something that we that physicists like to think because it inflates their their ego their their insecure ego their fragile one it's so good so the theories of every 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 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 a really helpful clarification, actually. I really appreciate that. You mentioned Weltanschauung and I'm notorious for mispronouncing words on here. I call it Parker's Pensies instead of pensée. So I'm probably saying Weltanschauung wrong. But in my philosophy studies, a Weltanschauung is a worldview and you're supposed to,

it's debated whether that's conceptual or whether it also incorporates 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 mention Weltanschauung yourself. What's the difference between a theory of everything and a Weltanschauung? And is it the same thing for some of those physicists that we were mentioning earlier? A Weltanschauung, I had no idea that it's a term used in the philosophical literature or the circles of philosophy, colloquially it's just something that i i just know 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 is to mean it's a framework through which one interprets the world that's unexampled or bespoke so 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? Okay, 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 asked Ian McGilchrist, why is this three inches or two and a half or whatever it is? By the way, for the people listening, I am referring to some blip bomb. He's a pro. 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 its 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 cataloged 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's also that also informs their action and generally speaking they're consistent their worldview and their actions are consistent as well most often it doesn't have anything to do with physics so john verveke has a velton 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.

But he has a particular way of viewing the world. Now, one may say, doesn't everyone have a way of viewing the world? Yeah, but it's not philosophically predicated. It doesn't have a metaphysic with it. It doesn't have an ontology. It doesn't have a justification for those. It doesn't have a relation between those and how other people think an explanation a quote-unquote explanation as to why the world why the world is the way that it is yeah um kurt's one thing i'm 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 and I'm from Chicago and we talk really Chicago land and we talk for, so I am, uh, I'm really excited for this can be a practice, uh, for, 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 fill, 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 Dutch and a lot of the Germans would say world and life view 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. And that's been one of the critiques

of the Weltanschauung 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, Weltanschauung, 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 the worldview. So a lot of people will talk about, I'm a Christian myself, so a lot of people say the Christian worldview. And there are certain things will talk about, 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, it puts you outside of Christian orthodoxy.

So you don't hold to the Christian worldview, I suppose. But as I've chewed on it myself and I've spoke with many, many Christians, both philosophically, theologically, and just on the popular level, 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 for my worldview to count as a Christian worldview, but mine is going to be different than everyone in my church too. We're 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-, right? Not everyone has chewed on these ideas.

What are some of those things that make for a worldview? What are some of the necessary questions that you must have an answer to? Even if it's not a definitive answer, what are some of the worldview type questions that you have in mind? 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 so i'm 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 Weltanschauung, the questions 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 examples. Okay, 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 millennia.

this toe project is me i i'm 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 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 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 say you know God. Isn't that the most abstract? And 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 kabbalistic 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 and a quality of god that's always escaping you always escaping 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 i what does that even mean they'll say that it like defiantly as if it's a check that 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, I don't know. There's a view that, hey, the theory of everything, the theory of everything, if there even is the, which there may be. I'm not discounting that.

I'm not a subjectivist like that. But it may be something extremely 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 but important, sorry, are most important, but hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. Almost like water to fish.

So maybe it's just right there. The theory of everything's right there, Parker. It's like right there. Yeah. I love what you're talking about with God, especially pulling Tolstoy. So I did, I've just been collecting master's theses or master's 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 kind of things. There's a God-world relation and the God-world distinction. So how does he relate and how is he distinguished? And so one of my supervisors, Kevin Van Hooser, is a really big deal in systematic theology world.

He put forward this view that God relates to the world like an author does to his play, or he calls it a theodrama. We live in a theodrama says it's, it's analogical. So it's not univocal. It's, 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, write the title,

God is ineffable, and then submit that because that's all you could say about God if he's ineffable. But being incomprehensible, we can't we can't fully comprehend god but if god's like an author then just like tolkien is on every page of his book and he's there those are his words his story the whole universe is 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 in the christian story it's like well no the the logos the word entered into his story and so he can be right there with you so jesus is tom bombadil yeah jesus is um he's tolkien if tom bombadil is is tolking then yeah that's so a different one would be c.s lewis c.s

lewis wrote wrote himself into the great divorce you familiar with that book at all it's um c.s lewis uh takes a bus ride out of hell he goes to hell takes a bus ride out to visit heaven he's like what would what would people in hell think of people in heaven uh it's a second chance type thing in heaven and goes to hell or he's in hell and goes to heaven? In hell and goes to take a bus ride, take a field trip to heaven, basically. How does that occur? There's a bus. Are you allowed to do this?

Yeah, there's a bus and the bus takes them there. And everyone ends up saying they'd rather stay in hell for various reasons, but they won't let go of their certain things. 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 their theology stuff, because again, it's about, it's about knowing God and not just knowing about God and stuff like that. So, uh, anyway, C.S. Lewis writes himself in to the story. He's, he's the main character, um, which is pretty cool that he chose himself to be in

hell to, 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 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, 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 that doesn't do anything. Philosophers are dumb. So I'm with you on this. I'm trying to come at it from a theological perspective, also from a philosophical one as well, but I love it, man. I love what you're getting at, but I wonder 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 made you think there was enough of them to base part of your life, a big part of your life, on exploring these ideas? big part of your life on exploring these ideas 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 we're 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 knowable 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 i'm like 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 find it invigorating. And it's so invigorating. it bangs on almost every single cylinder i i don't ever dread work except when it comes to video editing and that's it with 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 okay 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 okay what about the description okay gotta do timestamps 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 and just do that on repeats i i don't

care about all the ancillary aspects of it but the ancillary aspects are what allow it to flourish and so there's a tension there a heavy tension the the so i go through the exact same thing uh 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 and be like, man, this is such a great paper. You spent a year, two years writing this paper. Four people will 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 uh it becomes something else it becomes something where yeah i would love to

make a living doing this full time becomes i 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 just raw, pure intellectual endeavor. 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 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.

And 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 or woman this gal she entrusted me with her ideas and i need to get them out there so it's like talk yeah both of us are extremely fortunate that we're on youtube yeah 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 help yeah yeah and i 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 you heard some of 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 air? I could. You wouldn't know who they were, I would imagine. But yeah, I can tell you that. I want to be kind also. I don't want to be squishball. But I'm like, look, I don't think that your work is that good. And I don't want to be squishball i don't but 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 um so i've stopped

doing that good yeah good as in good for humanity good or good as in it's not original um 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 I know my audience would, and I feel really good promoting this. So like the reason I wanted to have you on is because one, I think you're a 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, like I'm so terrible at math and you're, you're like the math

guy. So it's, 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. 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 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, do you know, do you know anyone in computer science? Do you know anyone over in physics? 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. 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 of

so-and-so phenomenon there's class a class b class c i think that's 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, several premises that have to all be true in order for the simulation hypothesis to be true. It's also people making claims, like philosophers or computer scientists making claims about physical systems without showing how one can derive a physical system from computational from a computational

framework there's also some no-go theorems about the laws of physics being computational so here's one fun one 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's not even defined. So to think that what physics is doing is somehow computational, to me, seems to be a large assumption. And there's experimental bounds as to the digital nature of physics,

to how much can you... 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. 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 yet 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 nicha king midas there's something he wrote about king midas

nicha said this and it's like it's a's a quote I think about 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?

Like, 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. We call it antinatalism, right? But I was born without my consent. And it's easy for many people to just hand wave them away. And those are just people in their kid's basement.

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, this world's too hard. I love them too much to let them experience this world.

And I'm like, man, there's a whole thing about— That's the Oedipal mother. Yeah. Yeah. I was studying analytic philosophy at the time. So my mind was going to like designators and like, what are you referring to? If there's a non-existent child, like, what do you mean? Like your sperm and her egg. So I was getting all there instead of being a human being and trying to flesh out the sentiment behind that. And it was a really fascinating conversation. But all that to say, this is a real thing that people are struggling with. But yeah, somehow 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, no, I cut you off. I just wanted to throw that in that story. Oh, I know. I don't even, I, 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 you come into being?

That's a deep question. When does something come into get its own consciousness in the simulation hypothesis? Are you some other disembodied consciousness somewhere? when does something come in to get its own consciousness in this simulation hypothesis? Are you some other disembodied consciousness somewhere? Does that mean there's a soul? Does that mean that we're like the matrix and there's a real version of us somewhere else? Also, how do you know that you can recursively do this simulation? So they say, well, look, there simulate there's some argument of probability of well the simulation is likely to happen and 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's such that the first layer can't simulate another layer or the nth layer can't simulate an nth plus one layer like it's not clear to me that you can 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, I'll give you some time to think here. Oh yes. 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 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 explicit. And so all of these thoughts of we're simulated, okay, and then thus we are not real, okay. There's so many question marks that come up in my head. And these are just statements that are not real. Okay. 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 college athletes and we talk about Velton Shongs.

And we talk about, 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. 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 is a jumping off point

for people who would otherwise not be interested in philosophy or, you know, fundamentality 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. instead of me trying to steer the conversation away from it i steer right in now and hey if we lived in a computer simulation would we have free will what do you think would we be real what what's the difference between base reality particles of which this desk is made up of and uh it's uh it it and bit and uh you know zeros and ones gateway philosophy yeah right so you 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 say asking questions of it. Hey, here's this hypothesis. 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, this is my gong. I'm just clanging this. We should be thinking. Do 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 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. 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 bio sims, a question you were asking. A pure sim is someone who's wholly simulated. A bio sim 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 want 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, Jung 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. But it's a metaphor. And the world lined up in a certain way, was synchronous in a certain way to bring about this 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 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 if it's not God, then it looks like it's a simulate. 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. Now, I heard that so much. And of course, on the philosophical level, folks like Bostrom or 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. And why would the simulators allow us

to even question right so why are they why are they allowing like if there's a hiddenness to them should they exist so why not be fully hidden what do you think um so there's a there's this guy rizvan verk who he's written a popular level book called The Simulation Hypothesis. He's a computer programmer. He goes in for like a – this is syncretism in religions where he wants to unify. Syncretism is unifying all religions. He wants to say, look, this has been here the whole time, and we're progressing towards enlightenment. And so it's kind of a soul-building theodicy.

So in the philosophy of religion and 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 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. Maybe if it was super obvious, we would take it for granted. There's all sorts of ways that they could come up with. Or 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, people call it simulation theory. And I want to do some more work on theory versus hypothesis.

Cause 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. Um, yeah. An untestable hypothesis as well, at least currently.

That's what I think. Um, 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 data, saving compute. And so it looks like because of fundamental physics, or 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 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 a bit superficial. So many people, again, like you can say, well, the double slit experiment. People use the double slit experiment to justify almost anything. Yeah, that's right. So whatever religious view you have, it's like, yeah, but the double slit, that's Gödel's god.

That's not even everyone's god. It's Cantor's god. Okay, sure. And there are other interpretations of quantum mechanics that have nothing to do with a collapse. So, and definitely not consciousness collapsing it. 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 that come to me as a person of as a 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 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 because i too bad you're not going to be in mind fest i know dude it's mind fest like that's where i want to be yeah it was awesome last year um so 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 so yeah yeah okay yeah no chance but i mean you're gonna record it though so one of i'll say dude one of my favorite things i loved i liked going back and listening to the old ones the uh the ones from last year oh yeah and i look back for my questions like right away and be like how did they sound did i sound stupid i thought you had a great you had great questions great questions i think some of

the best if not the best i appreciate that man even better than ben gorsal's questions which i which i think we had to cut some off i appreciate that i i laugh we had to cut them just because audio was i laugh about ben's questions all the time. Once a month. Ben's questions then become diatribes. So we're like, okay, Ben, 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 10 minutes. I laughed so hard because I'd known of Ben.

I'd listened to a lot of his stuff after hearing him on Lex. 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 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 okay then you come on stage let's see now and then you give all the you give power to the heckler

i think people misunderstand ben when you look at the ben and yosha bach theolocution on toe there are many comments that say man ben is just not on yosha's level and i'm like are you kidding me are you just like do you ben is extremely bright and extremely incisive i and also 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 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 theologutions, but at least in that theologution, I'd say 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 maybe that's even a technical term, which has specifications. But when I think of a genius, I'm like, that's like Ben Goertzel. He doesn't really belong outside of the novel.

This guy should be an inventor in some novel somewhere. If you wanted to come up with kind of like a kooky genius, you'd write someone like Ben Goertzel who 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 it's like, Ben, well, who are you?

Where'd you go? I always have to ask him, Ben, are you, you know, is this Ben Gertzel 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, I'm, I'm the butt of the joke because I couldn't tell there wasn't the real Ben. So hopefully he was honest with me. Yeah. Ben'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, theolocution. 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 Josje Bak 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. It's so stifling. And 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 uh with an emphasis on harmony and i believe there's a term called meudic socrates meudic 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 not plato sorry plato because if you read the dialogues much of it is sardonic and sarcastic

and a bit scornful and i don't think that generates much new much new knowledge maybe it did back then maybe it's just our modern we're too we're too kind to one another nowadays but who knows so theolocution is just the root is theo meaning god and it was i was going to call them theo maki for gods 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 theolocution yeah i really like that i i we had talked about this at mind fest and i 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 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 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. Yes. Yeah. Because I haven't heard anyone else say that. That's why I felt like, man, I'm connected. Yeah. Or you were deceiving me and you did see it. So I should have known. But again, I was too jealous 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 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. But I want to do some cutting edge stuff. I want to ask some questions, not to ever, I, I'm really nervous about stumping 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 sort 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 geez 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 a what they'll call a diversity of opinions but what they secretly mean is why aren't you interviewing me like i 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 uh well yeah you you understand i do it messes with you it messes with you like and 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 it's i'm sure it's hard to start uh it's hard to meet new people and 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, man. I'm so glad. Except one guy. There was 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, we thought he was homeless because of how he was dressed and conducting himself. And 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 he wanted us to vote someone out, if he 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. Love your 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 talk a bit more. He's like, nice podcast. And then started walking away.

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 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 get some of this too. 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 and be like, yeah, wasn't that cool? Because he said this. 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 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. There's no, you know, so it's, it is kind of fun being like the podcast is ultimately for me. I am the main, the main, um, like 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 um one so we talked about like not not having 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 backing up what you were saying. I just had to bring that one up that I thought you did a really good job on that. And also because I'm a little bit biased against him. 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 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 with 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 Neil, especially toward the end. 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 were able to be loose with it. That's pretty cool, actually. Yeah, mainly when it comes to, I can talk to you off air about that. I'll tell you a bit off air, to be like loose with it that's pretty cool actually yeah mainly when it comes to like i can talk to you off sure i'll tell you a bit off here just remind me yeah 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'd said, but also because I would rather speak personally with diffidence.

So lack of confidence than I would by stating something as an categorically, as an asseveration. 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 going the other direction it would mean that people would underestimate me and so a part of me is okay with that maybe even wants 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 so 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 get corrected by the audience. So part of me, if I'm 80% sure about something, there are a couple 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 audaciously yeah but i tend to know that's good also i'm trying to i'm trying to no no go ahead yeah no i don't want to keep it please well okay i also i'm trying to i'm trying no no go ahead yeah no i don't want to keep it please well okay i also i'm trying to say 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. 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 Rogan talked about this, 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 pre-programmed bits. And, 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 if it's already just you i saw you slip into some neural rut and say something it's like when my stuff am i here with you or are you just having a conversation is this you know chat gbt uh pastiche or something like that you know the difference is is that what you mentioned am i here with you if it's a conversation if it's this 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 yeah you feel like it may as well be powerpoint presenter mode that's a good word you want it to be an exploration, both of us.

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 elucidate the diamond. 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 an 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, talking about projections, I mean, sorry, are just projecting. And the reason why I say I seem like is because I'm hearkening 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 so 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 that's good man i think that's that's what makes uh 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. It's not, and I think I've heard you talk about this on like a Q&A maybe or something. And you describe why you take thoughtful pauses. You describe why you're not embarrassed to use 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

I mean 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 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 words are patans. So I was interviewing this guy named Alex, sorry, Alex Honnold. He's the guy from Free Solo, the documentary. Patans are what you place in the wall when you're rock climbing. Maybe it 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 patans.ouglas hofstetter mentions this he may even have used the word baton that they allow you to reach places that you couldn't reach before and that and to do so

more easily and okay 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 okay you'd be like no please i wouldn't be able to to have the same models or see the world in the same way so what think about the addition of new words and how do you add new words well it's it's going to feel contrived at first but but you it's 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 just that i know and that you know that are words that are uncommon that someone else may not know 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, is beyond what they know in order for them to say what, but what does that mean? Or just believe me because it, 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 could 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, I. Yeah. And it's, it's my way of like, look, to speak to someone.

I'm a lonely, lonely person, Parker. I don't have, 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 him because he unites disparate fields. Like you mentioned, he's syncretic, but not with religion, 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 most trades and a master of some say jack of all trades master of none i think you could be a jack of of most trades and master of some master of some master of one you have to be master of

like two totally and then totally i'm with you on that he was a lonely person at least that's what i gather from his writings as well didn't have connections like like i feel like i 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 LA. 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. And I feel like I don't want to keep pestering them to do so. And I'm just pushing this boulder, man,

pushing this boulder. And I don't have these advantage advantages. I don't have a cousin in so-and-so. I don't have a friend who's given me connections and so-and-so I don't have a boss or a former employer. Who's this and that. So I relate to Da Vinci and, Oh, what Da Vinci, what was i going to say about da vinci generalist slash specialist you relate to him lonely somewhere with um yeah loneliness

let me push that button somewhere yeah well uh okay the 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 um this brings up so i want to i want to get to the god question because my audience, 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 together.

You have a different personality i use different words i i it's still me but it's you know it's we talk about that diamond or whatever it's a different angle on me and it it's different when i podcast it's different i'm it's different when i um i wrestled in college and I did jujitsu, and that brings out a different aspect of me. There's all these different aspects that are brought out by different things, and the language that I use is different. Just even the people groups that I hang out with, the jokes that I make. 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 what 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 authenticity is a really big thing to the point of becoming like a negative meme.

But 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're going 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. 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 are you like, look, each conversation will be a new Kurt in a sense? I'm fairly consistent. But I'm not a fan of authenticity as an unbridled good as much as many of our generation is. 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 their reflexive first responses are more than, than something else that's measured. That's a good point.

Yeah. Well, coming from the guy who has got measured speech, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's, it's a it's a it's an act of deliberation to find something that's true inside it 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 and I'm a disagreeable person. And so, look, I'm actually doing something that is valued in our society when I'm falling prey to my impulses and instincts. So there's a word called sublimation, which means to direct the expression of your instincts to a more culturally and socially acceptable form. We tend 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 whichever just being whatever you want and then the the the nichin would say you have to invent your own clothing like you can't choose any of those and then the buddschean 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. The true you is not, 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 with the clothing is the is the true you i don't think that well it's not clear to me that that and by the way i'm not authentic uh 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 even going to do it 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% 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 and so all this is just some affectation to hide my horrible inarticulacies and and baby like that's so good man i so i i feel very and i i resonate with that that resonates with me um with my wife, man. She's like, dude, if only people knew. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing. Yeah, it'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 like, 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 like philosophy of mind? Do you lean one way or the other? Do you think you're an immaterial substance?

Do you think you're, you know, does your mind terminate on your brain? What do you think? I a an immaterial substance do you think you're um you know um does your mind terminate on your brain what do you think i think that's the most 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, that's a formidable one. I'm going to have to skip the question of what am I.

Okay. No, no, no, but I can answer other questions that you asked right there. That's good. So, do I believe in that you asked right there. That's good. That's good. So, do I believe in... There are a couple aspects of dualism.

So there's property dualism, correct? And then there's substance dualism? Yeah, and then 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 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 Ha ha. It's not clear to me that the dualist position

is wrong. It's not clear to me that the monist position or the non-dualist position is correct. But I would say I'm a 157th dualist.

So, they're trialists and they're dualists. I'm a 157th dualist. Meaning like, I'd say that in a tongue-in-cheek way but there's a reason.

And that's my present deliberation. So it could change. It oscillates 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 some equation you're about to pull out of nowhere? Yeah, there's some reason to that number, but I'm also a secretive person, Parker.

That's good. I'm secretive about aspects that I 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 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 would be so trivial. Like I would tell him

he wouldn't know what 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 tell you that. And then he finds out. And then he's like, who cares? Why do you, why does 7am make a difference? Like, is that too early? Is that too late? Are you worried about something like, no, no, no, don't tell anyone. Just, just keep that between you and I. So I'm a secretive person, but I can tell you off air a bit about.

That's awesome. Secrecy in spiritual formation literature, it's like one of the spiritual practices. It's not secrecy 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 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 you're not sharing it it's a lie and i i think he probably had someone in mind that is like timid or like overly meek, right?

Because 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 have just eaten that one, dude. Like, I don't mean eating the food, just eating the insult or eating it, you know? So, yeah, 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, for me, it means waiting until someone pulls it out of you.

Like 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 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 in 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 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 there i don't the liberal way would be like yeah he's not god but he's a moral exemplar and all right we're really stretching here but either either way yeah um you know when you speak to dennett and you speak to chomsky if you don't ask them of religious questions you would never know they're military atheists so dennett i'm like i said something about jesus then he's

like jesus was a good person like actually a great person and then he's like christianity was necessary for the enlightenment like he says i'm like and then he also like, Christianity was necessary for the Enlightenment. He says, I'm like, and then he also has views about truth being pragmatic. So truth is what's, 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 the other side a win or anything like that. I wanted to get to the God question through the man question, like what we are, what we take ourselves to be. But something that's hard for me to understand is human value outside of a theistic perspective where humans are made in the image of God. I understand a lot of pragmatic arguments, but a lot of people think that we're on a continuum with

animals and we're just, um, one degree this way, you know, like we're, and there's not like an ontological 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 what is that difference in my in my velton 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 polyanian 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 what do you do you believe there is a god this is like a tough question to be asking you you see that the the what am i question this is hard um do you believe there's a god in in if so like what would our relation, what's our relation to him? And I don't mean to like set you up. I'm genuinely like curious, you know? I don't believe... See, I wouldn't... I wouldn't say that I don't believe in God,

and I won't say that I do believe in God. I would say that I contend with that possibility on a daily basis, an almost hourly basis. I contend with it. I contend with it and I delve into it i take it seriously extremely seriously 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 like take a moment take a moment before you eat okay okay now now you can eat 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 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 on one spectrum,

I don't know. I think, to me, there are two greatest philosophical problems of our era, for me, for what I deal with. One is Soraites'ites 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 like 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 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 serites paradox and the other philosophical problem i can't recall now the ship and theseus and syrites syrites 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 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 the, 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, it's 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 it's a disc instead of and there is this in a sense because there are different brains there's like d2 brains and d1 brains is it like an extended closed loop yes yeah well it's

like a disc okay a disc throughout time. But then there's also something by Putnam, by the way, who believed 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 westernly 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 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. And I, 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 might say it's, you take a slice, a time slice, and that's who you are is who you wholly are at that time slice. Parker, I have to stop you because I got to get going, man. I'm so sorry.

There's another meeting that I have. We went way longer. Yeah, I'm sorry, man. We went way longer. No, no, no. It's totally fine. Like, I got lost in this and I would love way longer. Yeah, I'm sorry, man. We went way longer. No, no, no. It's totally fine. I got lost in this and I would love to continue. Yeah, well, this is awesome.

Thanks so much for the time. I hope we can make it work to do part two. That'd be fantastic. Yeah, and I'd also love to meet up in person. Hopefully we can do so.