#805: Philip Goff — Exploring Consciousness and Non-Ordinary Religion, Galileo's Error, Panpsychism, Heretical Ideas, and Therapeutic Belief

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I would say that it is My hope with conversations like this. Two Reintroduce perhaps a degree of wonder and questioning.

0:17 And awareness in my listeners that enriches their lives. Because the how to stuff The tactical practical sort of toaster instruction type do this, do that. Is helpful.

0:33 But Sometimes the what To do question. takes precedent over everything else and you can end up operating as something like an ant in an ant colony. And I

0:48 with these philosophical conversations hope to open people to different perspectives. And ways of looking at their own lives and the world around them. And my guest today. Is Philip Goff. Philip is a professor of philosophy at Durham University. His main research focus is consciousness.

1:05 Big topic, but he's interested in many questions about the nature of reality. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. He is best known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. Fifteen years ago, panpsychism was kind of a joke. It was laughed at, if it was thought of at all. Goth has led a movement that has made panpsychism a mainstream position, taught to undergraduates, and widely discussed in academic journals. He is the author of Galileo's Error. foundations for a new science of consciousness and why. The purpose of the universe. He's published many, many fifty or so academic articles and has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and many others. You can find him on Twitter, that is X. at Philip underscore golf. That's P H I L I P underscore G-O-F F, and you can find all things Philip at PhilipGoff Philosophy.com

2:02 We're gonna get right into the conversation, but first just a few words from the people who make this podcast possible. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a midnight luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs, and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. Kind of over the top, to be honest. I mean they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattresses and what do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite. in a new guest bedroom, which I sometimes sleep in, and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel to help with some lower back pain that I've had. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right support in the right spots. It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support right where I need it. and middle lay with premium foam and microcoils that create a soft contouring feel. Which also means if I feel like I want to sleep on my side, I can do that without worrying about other aches and pains I might create.

3:05 And with a luxurious pillowtop for pressure relief, I look forward to nestling into that bed every night that I use it. The best part, of course, is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested with a back that feels supple instead of stiff. That is the name of the game for me these days. Helix offers a 100 night sleep trial. Fast free shipping and a fifteen year warranty. So check it all out. And you, my dear listeners, can get twenty percent off of all mattress orders, so go to Helix Sleep.com slash Tim to learn more. So Take a look. With Helix, better sleep starts now.

3:41 In the last handful of years I've become very interested in environmental toxins, avoiding microplastics and many other Commonly found. compounds all over the place. One place I looked is in the kitchen. Many people don't realize just how toxic their cookware is or can be. A lot of non stick pans, practically all of them, can release harmful forever chemicals. P Fass. In other words, spelled P F A S into your food, your home, and then ultimately

4:09 that ends up in your body. Teflon is a prime example of this. It is still the forever chemical that most companies are using. So our place reached out to me as a potential sponsor. And the first thing I did was look at the reviews of their products and said, send me One. And that is the Titanium Always Pan Pro. And the claim is that it's the first non stick pan with zero coating. So that means zero forever chemicals and durability that'll last forever. I was very skeptical. I was very busy. So I said, you know what, I wanna test this thing quickly. It's supposed to be non stick.

4:44 Supposed to be durable. I'm gonna test it with two things. I'm gonna test it with Scrambled eggs in the morning. Because eggs are always a disaster in anything that isn't non stick with the toxic coating. And then I'm gonna test it with a steak sear. I wanna see how much it retains heat.

5:00 And It worked perfectly. In both cases, and I was frankly astonished. how well it worked. The Titanium Always Pan Pro has become my go-to pan in the kitchen. It replaces a lot of other things for searing, for eggs, for anything you can imagine. And the design is really clever. It does combine the best qualities of stainless steel, cast iron, and nonstick into one product. And now our place is expanding this first of its kind technology to their Titanium Pro cookware sets, which are made in limited quantities. So if you're looking for non-toxic

5:35 Long lasting pots and pans that outperform everything else in your kitchen and Just head to from our place dot com slash Tim. And use code TIM for ten percent off of your order. You can enjoy a one hundred day risk free trial, free shipping, and free returns. Check it out. From our place dot com slash

5:54 Yeah. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I answered your personal question. Now we're seeing. My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal mental skeleton.

6:19 Philip, let's kick it off. With a question about another interview, which I very rarely do, but in this particular case I think it will Offer us perhaps a road into tying a few things together for people who are listening. And this relates to an interview.

6:35 by uh Pilzer Prize winning author Gareth Cook. Yeah, which ended up being one of the most viewed Yeah. Philosophy can get very abstract, it can really get out there, it can become hard to grasp or. in the minds of many, hard to apply.

6:53 But let's begin with what made that interview stick. What do you think some of the concepts or ingredients or lines Anything. Was that made that resonate with so many people. Rather than anything I've done.

7:09 I think just Consciousness and this strange view I've built my career defending Known as panpsychism. It's a view that somehow resonates

7:20 With people In all sorts of ways. It's been an incredible journey because it's a view that Fifteen years ago was ridiculed in so far as it was thought about at all. At least in my

7:34 Western philosophical tradition. But In this short time period it's Come to be A mainstream academic position that is taught to undergraduates and is

7:46 widely published on in academic journals. So it's it's been a astonishing transformation really, and it's really been exciting to be part of that. Why does it resonate so much with people One part of it is I think People who've had psychedelic experiences. Many of them have this sens. That

8:06 Consciousness. Pervades the universe. In a deeper sense than in the More familiar. Ordenary scientific

8:14 view of things. In fact, on the questionnaire for mystical experiences, you know, the proper psychological questionnaire, one of the boxes you tick is Do you have a sense that there is a living presence in all things? And so I suppose I mean this has not been From my academic starting point, this was not The route I took

8:33 To panpsychism, I think it solves a lot of the mysteries and paradoxes of consciousness that are cold-blooded Intellectual. But many people reading about my work who've had psychedelic experiences Something about it makes sense and You know, and I'm open to thinking about that too very much.

8:53 Let's define some terms. Right, because sometimes I think Yeah. Panpsychism. gets a bad rap or maybe just needs a rebrand. Like Patagonian toothfish being renamed Chilean sea bass. Maybe that's what panpsychism needs. I'm not sure. But I want to talk about the

9:10 Cold hearted intellectual. reasons or arguments for Panpsychism, but in simple terms, because I think some folks can maybe conflate it with something akin to animism. And add on a few. layers that are perhaps unnecessary. What is in simple terms for a lay audience

9:29 Panpsychism. That's a good starting point. I mean in terms of the rebrand actually my my good friend Annika Harris who's Very sympathetic to panpsychism. She's always saying this is a terrible name. We need to rebrand it, but I kinda think it's it's a bit late. It's kind of stuck. But

9:48 Panpsychism is the view that consciousness goes All the way down to the fundamental Building blocks of reality. Perhaps a way into that is i you know, if you start with human consciousness. That is incredibly rich and complex, the result of

10:06 millions of years of evolution. But consciousness comes in All shapes and sizes, you know, the consciousness of a sheep. is similar to the consciousness of a human being. What it's like to be a snail.

10:19 It's simpler to what it's like to be a sheep. And as we move to simpler and simpler forms of life We find simpler and simpler forms of conscious experience. For the pancycus this keeps going on. Right down to the

10:35 Fundamental building blocks with Paps. Fundamental particles like electrons and quarks having incredibly simple forms of conscious experience to reflect the Incredibly simple nature.

10:49 So common misunderstanding people always think oh what are you saying? Electrons of feeling existential angst or wondering if it's Tuesday or something. But the idea is that's human consciousness, right? Don't be anthropomorphic about this, you know, this is For panpsychists. human consciousness is a sort of weird

11:08 highly evolved form of What exists throughout the universe. So if there's so many different directions we could go here, we may get into some rather gnarly questions quickly. So

11:22 Just to reiterate. And to sort of clarify for myself or for listeners also. So from human to sheep. But all the way down to We can certainly go to quirks and so on with the way you described it, but you would have

11:37 A pool of water. Maybe the water droplets, rocks. the constituent parts of trees, et cetera, and so on. Sort of as you reduce down How would you think about that?

11:49 Just One small qualification though. Yeah, it it is A kinda common misunderstanding that panpsychists think Absolutely everything is conscious. And it and it's understandable that's actually what the word means pan.

12:03 Everything psyche, mind But Pan Cisters don't necessarily think literally everything is conscious. The basic commitment Is that the fundamental Building blocks. are conscious in some very simple way. Maybe electrons and quarks, like the example I just gave, but

12:23 Maybe not. I mean it's a question for physicists, not philosophers like me. What are the fundamental components of reality? These days many theoretical physicists Are more inclined to think that Our universe is made up of

12:38 Universe wide fields. And particles are just local excitations in those fields. So if you combine that with panpsychism You get the view that

12:51 The fundamental forms of consciousness underlie these universe wide fields. This gets closer to A form of panpsychism known as cosmos psychism that The universe itself is conscious. Although again, we need to be careful, that doesn't necessarily mean the universe is God or the universe is it could be just the universe is just kinda this messy, blobby, nonsense consciousness, right? So the that's the idea, the basic things are conscious.

13:19 And that Many other things, of course, are conscious humans and animals and our consciousness is somehow built up from these simpler forms of consciousness. But it doesn't mean Every random combination of conscious particles.

13:35 Make something that has its own unified consciousness. So it doesn't necessarily mean, you know Rocks and socks and tables and chairs. I remember teaching this to our undergraduates and I had a A powerpoint slide up. With socks on and saying

13:51 Your socks might not be conscious and and one of the students. Obviously took a photo of that. Put it on social media. This is what we're learning in my classes, but anyway, I think that was it. Lighthearted. Although some pan psychists do think literally everything is conscious. I I just mentioned Annika, I think I think she thinks that. My friend Luke Roloff's.

14:14 Very good. Very um Down to a scientific Pan psychist philosopher, but he does think literally everything is conscious. But even then it's not gonna be The kind of consciousness a human being has that is

14:27 A very specific highly organized form of information processing. Whereas if a table is conscious, it's gonna be just some meaningless, fragmented Disunified. Nonsense. But yeah, that's the basic idea.

14:42 So first things first, I wanna give a nod to Annika Harris. She has a Very extensive audio documentary. that relates to consciousness. If people want to do a deep dive into these subjects, but this word Consciousness. May

14:59 be bothering people at this point in the conversation kinda like a pebble in a shoe because For most people wandering about, going to Starbucks and watching Netflix and so on, consciousness They may have not taken the time to define it precisely, but the intuited sense is something along the lines of awareness. Maybe it's Awareness that you are aware, but there's some degree of awareness. So when you talk about a table or socks or rocks. I understand that you didn't imply that everything has its own consciousness.

15:30 But how should they think of this word? When applied to what people would Consider. Inanimate. Objects, for instance.

15:41 It's a really important question'cause it is a little bit of an ambiguous word and I agree with you when I'm talking to Public. The People often think that it means something quite sophisticated like self consciousness or

15:58 Awareness of one's own existence. And Philip, could I interrupt you for one second? Yeah. I thought what I might do is just kind of line up some And Are there any Physicists.

16:15 I guess some people might think of them as the Most refined plumbers of reality. Sorry, guys, if that's insulting. I just came up with that on the fly. But architects, maybe decipherers, detectives. There we go. Choose your label. Are there any physicists? credible physicists who would more or less agree with some of the Positions.

16:37 And theories that you are describing related to panpsychism. One person that stands out here is Roger Penrose, who's a Nobel Prize winning physicist. Fascinating, very interesting thinker. I was lucky enough to have One to one lunch with Roger Penrose Bonds. at a big consciousness conference and That's lucky he's getting and w one of the organizers sat him down and we just sat together and we

17:04 We had a lovely chat about our our different views. But he's defended a view that's Very close to panpsychism. The quantum collapse. Is connected.

17:15 One thing I don't know how much you want to get into his view because he's influenced by Girdle's incompleteness theorem. Which Not gonna get into too much detail, you know, roughly

17:28 Proves that For any Finite set of axioms, you're not going to be able to generate algorithmically all of the truths of mathematics. This was the fascinating thing. And so that leads Penrose to think Well there must be something non computational.

17:47 About human mathematical thought. Because if it was just algorithmic and computational We wouldn't get all those truths of arithmetic that we are able to comprehend.

17:59 And then where that leads him is he thinks well it must be At the quantum level. rather than at the level where we have classical physics. And this led him in in combination with Scientists.

18:12 Stuart Hammerov to explore The less common position that consciousness is connected to quantum stuff in the brain in what we call the microtubules. So yeah, that's absolutely fascinating position that Roger has got into. I mean another question that might be more pertinent is what about neuroscientists? Because I suppose, you know, consciousness Is in the

18:34 Per view of the neuroscience is very the science of consciousness, I think, is part of neuroscience. So we'll let's hop to that, but I wanna give you just a bit of trivium. Related to Penrose. So I've followed Penrose's work and Hammer off. Very deeply interested and I ended up By

18:52 A number of lucky coincidences doing a week at Wadham College where I believe He is a fellow. And his book was in my room where I stayed, and I asked someone about him and I Feel like I just missed him by a week.

19:08 And I was very sad about this. He's so open minded. He's such so many areas of thought. Just a really fascinating figure. So neuroscientists. Let's hop into that arena. I mean

19:21 The first thing you should know about the science of consciousness is there is no consensus. There is famously I don't know whether you've heard this, the uh twenty five years ago The neuroscientist Christoph Bet. The philosopher David Sharma's

19:36 That W this would all be wrapped up by now. Yeah. We would attract we would attract what we call the neural correlates of consciousness, those aspects of brain activity that perfectly correspond to consciousness. And he bet him a crate of fine wine. And it was a public bet. Well last was it last summer or the summer before

19:56 He publicly conceded defeat on that. No consensus But one of the major possibilities, one of the major views that is disputed and debated is the integrated information theory. I'm that gets us very close to panpsychism or is even itself a form of panpsychism because it entails that consciousnesses

20:20 More widespread than we ordinarily. Goes into the inanimate realm. There's two reasons this is getting thought about. I mean a Maybe psychedelics is a third reason, but there's two reasons. One is the newfound philosophical interest

20:35 But also this interest in the integrated information theory. But also just finally, I mean I think from what we've already said It becomes clear with consciousness, it is not just a scientific issue. The science is absolutely crucial. And the and the experimental work.

20:53 But with consciousness, there are so many philosophical questions we need to address. And I think actually what we've found is That's part of the reason. We haven't achieved consensus. Because actually forget the big philosophical questions.

21:08 How you interpret the scientific data. On the brain and consciousness. depends on your philosophical assumptions. There's there's a dispute among scientists about whether consciousness is at the front or the back of the brain. And actually I think the splits on that is something to do with the philosophical assumptions. So we need scientists and philosophers working together. I wanna get back to that'cause that's a very meta

21:33 examination of science and the scientific method that I want to get into. But since I'm a stickler for terms, the integrated information theory, can you speak to that for one moment and I funded a fair amount of science also at Johns Hopkins and other places where I believe they developed the mystical experience questionnaire, at least in part. The integrated information theory Could you define that for us? before we get back to the sort of and for people listening, don't worry. I keep good notes and have a good memory. We're gonna get to the definition of consciousness outside of

22:05 the broadly lay person interpretation of say awareness. Haven't forgotten about it, but just because that might take us down a bunch of side alleys, I wanna stick where we are for a second. The integrated information theory. What is that? So this is one of the proposals. May we can maybe distinguish the sort of scientific task of consciousness

22:24 From the philosophical tusk that as I say it, the scientific tusk is Which brain activity goes along with which kinds of conscious experience and more generally In general, what is required. From a physical system to get consciousness.

22:40 An integrated information theory is one proposal. And Roughly it says that Consciousness corresponds to Integration. You get a conscious system.

22:50 When the way in which information is stored in the system Depends. upon the integration between the parts of the system. They have a mathematically precise way of defining this. They represent it with the letter phi, and the proposal is That at the exact moment

23:08 when a system has more integrated information in the whole than in the parts. That's when the lights come on. That's when you get consciousness. That's when the lights come on. So I mean that is what is so striking about the brain. In fact the parts of the brain That are associated with consciousness are not necessarily the parts that have the most neurons.

23:28 But they do seem to be the parts That involve deep, deep integration each You're on being connected to hundreds and thousands of others, yielding trillions of connections. I mean, m maybe to connect to how computers work. If the integrated information theory turns out to be true. Computers that are anything like what we currently have. Are actually not gonna be conscious.

23:50 Because the way in which information is stored on a computer is less dependent on integration. If you take out a bit of um You know, a few transistors, you won't necessarily lose that much information. But if you take out a small part of the brain at least comparatively, you lose a hell of a lot of information because

24:08 The way in which information is stored is so much more holistic and to do with integration. And so the theory basically says That is the hallmark of consciousness. That's what it's all about. So Blitz

24:24 Perhaps make a contrast of styles and then Because I don't wanna hold out and tease people for too long. We'll try to take a stab or I will I'm using the royal we I will ask you to take a stab. Just giving us a working definition of consciousness that doesn't And Before we get to that though, contrast and styles perhaps.

24:47 The uh integrated information theory seems to imply and this is something I I have zero familiarity with, so I could get this wrong. On consciousness as an emergent property. So things are simple. they get more complex and when they reach a Requisite level of complexity. Where

25:07 the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, as you would expect it. The lights turn on. And maybe I'm misinterpreting that. But I'm wondering if that is accurate. If you as someone who has looked at this very deeply through a philosophical lenses.

25:23 would agree with that or Does it start from the very beginning? With the smallest constituent parts. Does that make any sense?

25:32 It does make a lot of sense and and here you're Focusing on on a key Big question here, you know. Chicken or egg, which comes first? The physical world.

25:43 Or consciousness. And you know, the standards Scientific assumption is Well it's the physical universe that's first, you know. Particles.

25:54 forming complex systems, brains, and then in some of the complex electrochemical signaling in brains, consciousness pops up. It's emergent as you say Whereas The panpsychist actually Turns that on its head. And says no no no.

26:10 Consciousness some story about very simple conscious entities. Is the foundational story And in fact, physical reality. emerges from that more basic story about consciousness. Now you asked about integrated information theory or They call it IIT for short.

26:28 And I've always been a little bit On sure. You know, the key figures here are Giulio Tannoni and uh Christoph Koch, who I mentioned earlier. We had a conference recently in Sweden bringing together Philosophers working on panpsychism and leading proponents of integrated information theory. And we really wrestled it out. And I actually was

26:51 Pleasantly Surprised to realise we're actually on the complete same page as this. I think at least the leading proponents of Integrated information theory, those neuroscientists Aw like us philosophers,

27:05 Of the view that it's consciousness that's fundamental actually, and everything else Flows from there, everything else comes out of consciousness. Is that A close cousin or does it rhyme with what Max Plank.

27:18 Icon. German physicists said so long ago. I have never had the full context of this quote. And this is as good a time as any after you answer this just to give us a working definition of consciousness that can be applied in the way you would like to apply it. So Max Planck. I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing postulates consciousness. So Max Planck eighteen fifty two to nineteen forty seven, Nobel Prize winning German physicist and the father of quantum theory.

27:52 Was he referring to More or less What You are discussing, or did he say this in a different context? It's fascinating what you point to though, and it's not just Max Planck. It was a fairly widespread view among many

28:10 physicists at the time I A colleague of mine who works on the history of philosophy Tweeted something recently. That was A quote from a physicist from the nineteen thirties, Oh God, I can't remember now who it was, saying, Of course all physicists think consciousness is fundamental now. What? I think you know something happened in the post war years where

28:32 This all went out the window and w we moved to dominance of the m what we call materialism. Roughly that the physical world is fundamental. We can Leave it to the historians, perhaps to work out what was going on there. But w what was the interest of Max Planck? I mean, I should say I'm not an expert on Max Planck, but I suspect it might be something to do with

28:53 Quantum mechanics and some of the mysteries that have emerged since early days of quantum mechanics. I mean, the weird thing about quantum mechanics. Is that if we just take the core bit of mathematics, what we call the Schrödinger equation. It seems to describe this weird world of What we call superpositions. And don't ask me what a superposition is,'cause nobody knows, but it's something to do with You know, the particle is not in this location and not in that location, but

29:23 Sort of in both and neither at the same time, or you know, captured with the Famous Schrödinger Cat thought experiment. What If you just apply the Schrödinger equation. You'll find that the cat

29:36 Before we open the box, the cat is Living and dead, and as many cats, or some of them living, some of them dead. But of course that's not what we ever observe. Whenever we actually observe the particle, it's in a definite location. Whenever we actually open the box and Look at the cat, if we were cruel enough to actually do the Schrödinger's cat experiment, we'd see a definitely living cat or a definitely dead cat.

29:58 What on earth is going on there? And what the early pioneers of quantum mechanics said is Well When you make an observation. Things change. And a different bit of mathematics, what we call the born rule.

30:11 Comes in. And tells you What you're gonna observe, or at least the the probability of what you're gonna observe. So it's a sort of bridging principle That takes you from this weird world of superpositions to The definite reality you actually can observe.

30:25 And you know, the early pioneers of quantum mechanics like Niles Ball They didn't want you to ask questions about that. In fact they hate it. Nails ball. You know, people Talk about him.

30:39 Just say he was this incredibly charismatic figure. People compared him to Jesus or Socrates. But he also Ruled like a communist dictator in crushing opposition. If you ask questions about what what is going on. In reality, to make quantum mechanics make sense Your career would be over, right? They didn't want you asking those questions.

31:00 But you know, one answer that some people reached in the nineteen sixties Nobel Prize winning quantum pioneer Vigner. Well, maybe it's consciousness that's making the difference. Right. Maybe that's That's what's the difference between before you're observing the particle.

31:15 And it's in many locations and when you observe it. Or before you open the box, To see with the what's going on with the cat. It's the interaction of consciousness. The Changes reality from

31:27 This wacky world of superpositions to a definite reality. And that's been somewlected over the years, but actually Some friends of mine, David Sharmers who I mentioned, and Kelvin McQueen I've actually taken that view. and explored it in rigorous detail. They don't necessarily think it's true. But there's value in just

31:47 Analytically Exploring This position, laying it out rigorously, looking at the pros and cons. So maybe that natural connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics was something to do with it, but I'm not totally sure. I

32:04 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. And I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me. On the road. So what is AG1? AG one is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take advantage of this exclusive offer for you, my dear podcast listeners, a free one year supply of liquid vitamin D plus five travel packs with your subscription. Simply go to drinkage one.com slash Tim, that's the number one. Drink AG1. dot com slash Tim for a free one year supply of liquid vitamin D plus five travel packs with your first subscription.

33:02 Purchase learn more at drinkag1.com slash Tim. We go down a number of different paths from here, of course. Placeholder. Definit of consciousness.

33:18 For the purposes of how you've been using it. In the context of panpsychism. The way The word consciousness is standardly used, I think, in both science and philosophy.

33:31 It just means Subjective Experience. Your consciousness is just What it's like to be you.

33:40 So you know, right now you're having a An auditory experience of my voice speaking to you. visual experience of the room around you. You know, if you pay attention. You'll notice the subtle tactile sensations of the chair beneath your body. This is just all part of

33:58 What it's like to be you. And that's all we mean by consciousness. So Now we can start to see that It make a little bit more sense that this could

34:08 exist in very simple forms because we're not necessarily talking about conceptual understanding or awareness of your own existence, we're just talking about experience. And You know, maybe bed bugs could have experience. Maybe something even simpler could have Very, very simple forms of experience.

34:26 Thank you. And if people want to impress or confuse their friends at the next cocktail party. Could they call those things qualia? Would that be a word they should throw around? Perhaps. Or quality of a different thing entirely. No no that's um

34:40 The philosopher's lingo, I suppose, to mean I guess the qualities we encounter in conscious experience and some people think That's really at the heart of The challenge here, the colours, the sounds, the smells the taste. Consciousness seems to involve Rich qualities, you know, the smell of coffee, the taste of mint.

35:02 The deep red. Of a sunset. And Maybe it's that. That physical science struggles with so much.

35:11 Because physical science since Galileo Has aimed to be purely quantitative, purely mathematical, purely objective and third personal. And so it's hard to see how you can bridge The explanatory gap between

35:28 That purely quantitative world of physics and physical science and this subjective qualitative world of consciousness. And in fact, one final thing Physical science kicked off. With Galileo. Taking consciousness outside of the domain of science to

35:45 For this precise reason. Because he thought Correctly, I think you can't capture those qualities in purely mathematical language. If we want mathematical science We gotta take consciousness out. And I think that's really I mean, this is my book, Galileo's Era. I think that's really at the root of

36:00 our current predicaments of consciousness. We need to Find a way of bringing together What Galileo separated four hundred years ago. This may be uh Naive question, but

36:11 If we can Explore quantum mechanics in mathematical form. And if we move from kind of Newtonian billiard balls. Two Quantum mechanics.

36:25 If Quantum mechanical effects. at least in part explain consciousness. It's a big if, I suppose, but if. Couldn't we then reincorporate it into

36:37 Mathematics. Or do you think that's a fool's errand? I mean you're making the case I suppose The the materialist to want to make the person who thinks No no We can do this. I mean I suppose everyone agrees

36:50 We haven't done it yet. We haven't got even the beginnings. We haven't got even the beginnings of an explanation of How Electrochemical signalling Make a feeling.

37:05 But yeah, I mean I think a lot of people inspired by the the success of physical science think come on let's We can get there in the end. We just need to keep pushing at this. But I suppose that's why I think w we do need to reflect maybe on

37:21 The intellectual philosophical starting points of science with Galileo were This moment when Galileo kicked things off by taking consciousness Out. How did Galileo

37:34 Strip. Consciousness out. Was it incidental? Was it very deliberate? Because it was just like, Okay, this is the misbehaving kid in the classroom. We need to put him in the corner. How was that done? What was the error, so to speak. Galileo

37:49 Wanted? And this was Such a revolutionary innovation wanted science to be just purely mathematical, that had never been done before. But I he understood that the problem is The qualities we seem to encounter in our experience, the colours, the sounds, the smells and the tastes.

38:06 So he said, you know, how do we get rid of them? You can't capture them in mathematics. You can't I mean you can capture a lot. Right. You can capture with colour experience. You can divide up colour into the dimensions of hue, saturation, and brightness, right? And you can map out a

38:21 Three dimensional. Space the But you can never Convey to A blind from birth neuroscientist.

38:31 With that sort of information. The redness of red. Right, but you know what it's like to see red. Actually, there's a great neuroscientist. Not Norby, the late Not Norby's passed away now, who is an expert colour scientist

38:46 Who had uh cones missing from his eyes. So he could only see black and white in shades of grey. And he talked in one he was interested in the philosophy, talked in wonderful rich ways about how he he understood the the structure of colour experience. But he couldn't quite get it the the colours. The qualities themselves. So Galileo said, right, well

39:08 We need that to be outside of the scientific domain. So what he said he stripped The physical of its qualities. He said, you know, the colours. They're not really in the objects, you know, this Spatman mug I've got here, you know the The blueness and the yellowness, that's not really

39:24 On the surface of the cup. That's in the conscious experience of the observer looking at it or the The spiciness isn't really inside the curry. It's in the experien the conscious experience of the person eating the So he strips the physical world of all these colours and sounds and smells and tastes. Where are they? They're in the soul. Right, they're in the soul. That's outside of science.

39:48 And once he'd strip the qualities away. You've free reign to capture everything else in mathematics. Now that was a good move. 'Cause it was the start of mathematical physics. And it's led to incredible technology and

40:02 Consensus on this body of information. Oh. I think we're in a period of history where it's gone so well. People now think that's everything! We found the way forward. But we need to remember it's gone so well.

40:16 Because it was given a limited focus, because consciousness was put outside of the domain of science. So I think if Galileo were to time travel to the present day and hear about these challenges of explaining consciousness in the terms of physical science, He said, Of course you can't do that. I design physical science to exclude consciousness. If you want to bring consciousness. Back in the scientific story. We need to rethink those foundations. We need to bring together what Galileo separated. And I think that's what panpsychism gives us a way of doing. It's not telling us to do science differently.

40:49 It's telling us to have a more expansive scientific method. That brings consciousness back into the story. Ooh, I wanna explore that last part. And I would just say, I mean, for folks listening and please excuse me, I'm operating way above my pay grade here, so I'm probably gonna make mistakes, but Newtonian physics, for instance, works fantastically well for so many things. But once you have

41:12 Quantum mechanics. Introduced. It becomes very clear that it's an excellent tool kit. But it doesn't have a complete range of applications, let's just say. And if you talk to any good doctor, I don't know if this joke exists.

41:28 in it's not really a joke, I suppose, but sort of a philosophical epistemological quip, which is, you know, fifty percent of what we know is wrong, we just don't know which fifty percent. If you talk to any really good doctor, they'll tell you that. So there's no reason to believe that we have Anything approaching complete understanding of the physical world. through the tools that we have available. How do you Yeah.

41:50 expanding, if I'm recalling correctly, sort of expanding the scope of science to include panpsychism. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be done? I think come back to this Question of we we just need to explore different explanatory projects. For many decades now.

42:07 We've been pursuing the following project. Trying to explain Conscious experience in terms of utterly Non conscious processes in the brain. And that project, despite a lot of time and energy and money.

42:22 Has gone precisely nowhere. Which is not to say The science of the brain has gone nowhere. We've made incredible progress But on that particular question of how Electrochemical signallings on the brain. Could

42:36 Make a feeling. You know, we haven't even got the beginnings. So the panpsychist says well Let's just try it upside down. Let's try the the reverse of that explanatory project. You know, we start with consciousness.

42:50 Can we get Physical reality out of that. And I just think it's turned out that that's a much more fruitful explanatory project. I think actually the mysteries have been solved, essentially. And I think the A lot of the resistance is

43:06 It just kinda feels weird. It takes time to adjust to these things. But look, you just I would just say just contrast these two expansion projects, right? Starting with Physical science trying to get consciousness out. Starting with consciousness, trying to get Physical reality out. Which works, and I I think the latter we've just made much more progress on it.

43:24 You know, I was just doing a little bit of searching. on perplexity for people who are interested, which AI tool I am using, which tends to focus a lot on avoiding or minimizing hallucination. I thought you were metaphorically referring to front and back of the brain. When you're discussing. How

43:44 Your philosophical beliefs. Or what would we even call this sort of philosophical undergirding would affect your scientific exploration or interpretation. But I put in Question What do neuroscientists believe is the neuroanatomical seat of consciousness? Yeah.

44:01 And the first thing that pops up, so IT is here, integrated information theory, but global neuronal workspace theory, man, they could use some branding on that, but that's okay. GNWT. This theory, championed by Dr. Stanislas Dahin, I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly, suggests that consciousness arises from the integration of sensory information in the frontal parts of the brain. The front of the brain acts as a sketchpad where sensory signals are combined with memories and emotions, and this information is then brought across the brain. IIT posites from a grid like interconnection of neurons at the back of the brain. And it goes on and on. And then there are many other theories. The thalamus and its interaction with the cerebral cortex, the uh sepetotemporal area, the clostrum. That one has come up a bit with uh neuroscientists. I've spoken to at a few universities. Thin sheet of neurons connected to the neocortex. Okay.

44:53 Now, what do you think of the uh let's put IAT aside for a second, but just this general Pursuit. The pursuit of some neuroanatomical seat of consciousness, because the answers we get are only going to going to be as good as our questions. And While science is excellent scientific method for testing hypotheses doesn't always give you a great set of tools for generating

45:19 the best or better question. So do you feel like this is Worth pursuing? Or is there something that scientists have as a blind spot that Perhaps dooms this question. From the very outset.

45:33 The neuroanatomical seat of consciousness. Absolutely we you know, we need the science. We're not gonna make progress on Consciousness without science and what you've pointed to it it is a really I mean m maybe just

45:48 Touch on Another way of seeing, you know, why this is so hard. To make progress on And the reason Consciousness is not publicly observable.

45:58 I can't look inside your brain. And see your feelings and experiences. I can't look inside. a fish and see, you know, is does it have feelings, you know? Cause and this is leads to all sorts of ethical problems. I mean what what you can do If you're dealing with a human being.

46:16 Is you can ask them. Right. While you're scanning their brain, maybe you can stimulate a bit of the brain, so what did that feel like? And that's really essentially the tool for Doing the scientific task of trying to mirror together the uh invisible world of consciousness and the visible world of the brain. It's very hard, but that that's what

46:38 We try and do but really I think That's where the limit is. With science. in regard to consciousness, because consciousness is not publicly observable. That is all you can do. It's very important.

46:51 But that is all you can do. Try to get those correlations in the human case. And then Try as best you can to extrapolate the To the non human case. But that will always leave open.

47:04 The why question. Why does Brain activity go along with Consciousness. Brain activity have anything to do with consciousness?

47:14 And I think at that point you need to turn to the philosophy and just Look at the various possibilities that we've discussed. Well, maybe the physical world is fundamental and Consciousness emerges, maybe consciousness is fundamental. And physical reality emerges, maybe they're both.

47:30 radically different. This is what's called dualism. Maybe consciousness is in the soul. And that's just separate from the body and the brain. And this is actually theory in uh human history of consciousness, you know, that consciousness is somehow some but the scientific data on consciousness, important as it is, just

47:50 It's just neutral. on all those possibilities. This is what I'm so passionate about getting across to people, and I understand why people find that frustrating and they think No, can't we do an experiment, you know? Can't we I mean maybe you should say, Well, we just don't know. All we know is the correlations. We just don't know.

48:06 Mm. We can try and do some philosophy. We can try and see if we Can we evaluate these different options, maybe in terms of Simplicity, Occam's razor. Maybe that would get rid of the soul.

48:18 Or how well Their explanatory aims have gone. And I think when we do that, panpsychism just looks More plausible. I've talked a bit long there, if I could say one more thing about like how how we make progress.

48:32 I think it might get to the point where what we need to do. It's Fragment The discipline a little bit. Into

48:41 Communities of scientists and philosophers. That is to say Scientists doing experiments. Under certain philosophical assumptions. And that's really actually

48:52 With I IT and global workspace theory. That is kind of already going on, but not explicit. But maybe we just have to do that and see what bears fruit. You know, some neuroscientists I know don't like that and they think, Oh, we're not we're not gonna be taken serious as credible science, we won't get funding. I feel that. But unfortunately, if you're gonna deal with consciousness for all the reasons we've discussed, it's not publicly observable. Science was set up

49:18 From taking it out the picture. You just need to do some philosophy. So maybe what we need to do is just get society. To take philosophy more seriously and to see the role that has to play. in the project of finding out about reality. And then I think we'll make progress on consciousness. So if people want to get really squirrely. And explore.

49:38 Consciousness as something perhaps non localized or not limited. The brain they can read a collection of different writings called Mind Beyond Brain, which was edit by David Prestie. Now

49:55 If David Presty were just Playing singing bowls and swinging copal around the public square. walking around in rags, it would be one thing, but he's a neuroscientist at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology for nearly twenty years. Still teaches and also has worked as a clinical psychologist in the treatment of addiction and PTSD and so on, at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Medical San Francisco and SF. Very interesting. Not all chapters, in my opinion, are strong, but a few will definitely provoke some very bizarre questions. So that's something people can dig into if they'd like. Let me ask you about Hypothetical situation which is

50:35 If we made another bet. So Let's say that's the You bet me. You're like, you know. Twenty years from now.

50:43 We're gonna figure it out. Cradle Wine. Your choice. It's like a fantastic. And it gets figured out.

50:50 We somehow determine, maybe it's with the help of quantum computing and harnessing the power from other universes. By the way, if people haven't listened to the discussion of quantum computing I had with Steve Jervison quite a while back now. It is. But let's say it gets figured out. What is the payoff?

51:09 Also like a very dumb question. Is it Trying just to resolve some Deep angst in the not knowing as it relates to consciousness, or is there more to the potential payoff?

51:23 If we were to somehow figure it out. You know, I actually think there are very important practical ethical concerns here. I mean w one thing we've touched on slightly is Animal consciousness. Which animals are conscious and

51:38 I mean actually the direction of travel Has been going. more and more things are conscious as time has gone on. There was recently a A letter written by dozens of neuroscientists. Arguing that we need to at least take seriously.

51:53 The possibility that insects are conscious. I mean, there was a time people didn't think babies were conscious and used to do quite horrible things on babies without surgery without anesthesia. God, and that was not that long ago. This is not the 1300s we're talking about. You know, it's only recently people are thinking birds and fish are conscious, so You know, us panpsychists uh have taken it all away and we're just waiting for everyone to catch up. I'm I'm being slightly ironic. But um you know, plants I don't think people are at the stage necessarily where they are Well there are some biopsychists who think well they're not pun psychists, but they think

52:27 All living things are conscious. But we have learned incredible things about Plant intelligence that plants can be subject to conditioned learning. Which was incredibly surprising that the the extent to which Trees communicate onto the ground and share information and

52:46 between species, there's cooperation and sharing of food and nutrients, and there's just some incredible buzzing community beneath the ground. So I think, you know, w as we learn more about Animals and plants, it it is leading people to ascribe consciousness more and more widespread. But look, I mean, this is a very serious ethical question, which things are conscious. People often think I'm gonna be a vegan, but It makes it harder. If you're a panpsychist. If you're not a panpsychist, if you Or a biopsychist.

53:16 You've got a nice, easy, ethical Dividing line. You know, plants aren't conscious. I j I I just won't eat things that are conscious. But I think trees and plants are conscious, you know, and I gotta eat something. So it just it it really there really is ethical issues here. The other one is People in comas who we can't communicate with in in the normal way, at least

53:38 Are they conscious? Can they hear us? You know, I mean one of them fascinating was maybe ten or fifteen years ago now. That scientists were able to communicate with somebody in a coma through asking yes or no questions and saying, you know

53:53 For the yes question, oh I can't remember the details now, you know, think of playing tennis and then they observe they scan the brain to see if the motor region was activated and communicated with someone through scanning their brain and found out that they did have meaningful thoughts. So I mean those are the two big Ethical questions, I suppose. But look, I I don't think we should underplay Questions. that just don't have practical significance but

54:21 A part of What it means to be a human being in the sense of The noble project of trying to have our best guess as to what reality is like. I think human life isn't just about You know, building bridges, curing disease. Working on the economy as important as those things are.

54:39 I think we wanna know. What is this world we're living in? How do we fit that into our Our own understanding of our meaning and purpose in this life and So you know, consciousness is important for that purpose too.

54:51 And there's also Oftentimes practicality on the further side of something that seems impractical or at least not immediately practical. That happens all the time in science. Happens all the time in medicine. All the time in pharmaceutical development. I could give you two good examples of that actually, just of uh where blue sky thinking has gone in. Well, the Reverend Thomas Bays

55:17 was annoyed by the atheist David Hume in the eighteenth century with his argument against miracles that we should never trust miracles,'cause it's always gonna be more likely that It was deceit or error rather than a break in the laws of nature. Thomas Bays, Reverend Thomas Bays is like, what's going on? And he wrestled with this and he came up with a little bit of mathematics. That we now call Bayes Theorem.

55:41 Which you know? Which is our call. Mathematical way of understanding evidence. It's was very important in tracking the Covid pandemic. It it informs A huge bit of neuroscience we call predictive processing. Another quick example, I mean Bertrand Russell my hero and

56:00 Got the Frager. We're wrestling with The very abstract question of can we Reduce mathematics to logic. Why the hell would you be worried about that? But anyway, can we just

56:11 Explain all of maths away. Philosophers Worry about Numbers. What the hell are numbers? Where are numbers? You know, Plato

56:19 Back in the dawn of Western philosophy, Plato thought numbers are really out there. Some philosophers think, I don't I don't wanna believe in this magical world of numbers, platonic heaven. Maybe we can just get it all reduced to logic. And they wrestled with this and it didn't really work out, but they came up with Predicate logic. Which is you know, being hugely important in

56:40 Computer science and um god. It's huge loads of areas of science. So yeah. So look, we we need to be too worry about just focusing on the practical questions. You know, we need space for blue sky thinking and trying things out because you don't know where it's going to end up. I'm gonna come back to Bertrand Russell, which I was planning on Hitting it. Regardless. But first I

57:02 Thought we could explore a little bit your experience with Virtual reality. And this was in the seven pages that you sent to me. Some other

57:15 Which we don't have to go to In depth, but specifically The experience you had with VR, if you could just speak to that Because Part of my hope with conversations like this is just to point out to people

57:31 How what we take for granted as the ordinary is so fucking crazy on so many levels that it's worth taking a pause every once in a while to revisit it. And I thought your experience was a very eloquent way of putting that into perspective. Thank you. Yeah, this was a a funny one. I I suppose just you know, when you first try VR goggles is just like oh my god, this is world and I can interact with it and Unfortunately I was with my two little kids and they they wanted their turn and obviously I I I only have like five minutes and I was like

58:09 It's not fair. Why do they get to do So that I was thinking, I was just I wasn't gonna have another go'cause my kids are playing with us, oh back to boring reality. I listen don't mean Actually Normal reality.

58:23 Even this kind of mundane Living room I was sitting in. It's so much richer. Than the best VR we have, right? You could you know, the subtlety of Touching a leaf or stroking a carpet or

58:39 breathing the air, if you pay attention to the air going in your nose and You know, I mean there's just so much richness in every present moment. The only problem is For some reason I don't know, it's something to do with evolution probably. Us humans are sort of set up to get bored of it very quickly. And we just want the next thing that we want to

58:59 Get me a next Netflix drama, get me a drink to just sort of drown my sorrows and So I just think that that really dawned on me in a deep way. The importance of just Trying to calm That restless boredom.

59:17 Yeah. And just get back to The richness at the present moment. has to offer. I didn't say this in in the pages you kindly read, but I thought actually I've got a four year old and an eight year old. Actually

59:31 Playing with kids can be kinda meditative, like a spiritual Experiment. I mean I've got a friend I remember a colleague when they first had kids and they said It's really boring, isn't it, playing with kids and you know, in a sense it is, but You know, at first it's boring playing role play playing One of my kids wants to play teachers all the time, but and it's boring at first and you wanna oh I wanna do something else, I wanna do something more.

59:56 But then if you just bear with it and you let the restlessness calm. And then you absorb in it and you see, you know. The wonder of the weird way they're thinking and the strange expressions and their unusual behavior and the richness of the present moment and It's just a different way of thinking about the value of meditation or mindfulness or just trying to Calm yourself in the present moment. That's the beginning of happiness, I think, isn't it, just

1:00:21 Getting yourself settled in the present moment. All right. As promised, Bertrand Russell. And this is gonna take us into some fun territory, I suspect. Why is Bertrand Russell

1:00:36 one of your Heroes. And maybe you could speak. to William James as well and answer that same question. Yeah, Bert and Russell. I think of Russell as the Darwin of consciousness. I think he

1:00:50 In very important work in the nineteen twenties, he sort of solved all the mysteries and And it got actually Sadly forgotten about for a long time and it's only In the last ten or fifteen years it's it's really been rediscovered. Not that it was literally forgotten about, but it's been examined again, and this has led to this

1:01:08 New wave of Pan psychist thinking in contemporary Philosophy Another to throw in. From the same period, the nineteen twenties is Arthur Eddington.

1:01:19 Who was incidentally the first scientist to experimentally confirm Einstein's general theory of relativity. That made Einstein a an overnight celebrity. And it was a big moment actually. It was Because it was Was it between the walls I think and it was

1:01:34 An English. Experimental scientists confirming the theory of a German or or a Swiss German Scientists. And a Swiss German scientist not only

1:01:45 confirming their theory, but their theory they're overturned. A couple of hundred years of Newton, right? Newton had the theory of gravity. Eddington's observation showed that actually Einstein's slightly more nuanced Yeah. Did better than Newton's. So anyway, they worked together and they thought about these questions around consciousness in a really fascinating way. And without wanting to get into too much of the technicalities, I think they're essential in sight.

1:02:10 Was the Physical science doesn't really tell us what matter is. And w when I first heard that, I I I honestly thought this is ridiculous. What are you talking about? You know, you read Physics, you get this rich story about the nature of space and time and matter. But their point was well.

1:02:28 Of course important and rich as that is. Ultimately at base. Physics just gives us mathematical structure. And so in a sense Physics doesn't care what matter is, it doesn't care what physical reality is, it just cares what its mathematical structure is.

1:02:44 If you get the right mathematical structure, that's all physics cares about. And you know, Stephen Hawking famously captured this on the last page of A brief history of time when he said Even the final theory of physics won't tell us.

1:02:57 What breathes fire into the equations and makes A universe for them to describe. So really I mean the way We conventionally think about consciousness.

1:03:08 Oh we know what matter is. We know what the brain is. But we don't know what consciousness is. We don't know what this weird consciousness thing. Russell said, it's precisely the other way around. We know what consciousness is by being conscious. You know what pain is when you feel it. It's the brain, it's physical reality. We don't know what it is, we just know it's it's abstract mathematical structure. We don't know what

1:03:30 fills out that mathematical structure. And so building on these insights I don't know how much you want to get into this building on these insights. Philosophers have worked out ways of If we started

1:03:43 With the postulation of Networks of simple conscious entities. So long as through their interactions they had the right patterns, the right mathematical structures, we'd get physics out of that. We could get

1:03:57 Physics. out of consciousness. I think we know from Russell, I think we know that can be done. We don't know if we can get consciousness out of physics. But we know we can get physics out of consciousness. Why are we still

1:04:10 Banging our head against a brick wall. thinking, you know, how can we get consciousness out of physical stuff? When does it we know it can be done the other way around. We've made sense of that. Let's just At least run with that as an option. I know it feels a bit weird.

1:04:26 But you know. That's just a cultural thing. Where does William James Fit in to your life. And why such an influence?

1:04:35 I think Even more than Russell William James. Is my big hero. I think just Something about his

1:04:43 intellectual character, I think. If you read James, he feels like Someone in the present moment, he's just so Up to date and sharpen. reasonable in his thinking, but I mean on all sorts of areas. I mean he wrote wonderful things on panpsychism. In terms of the challenges to panpsychism, actually

1:05:03 The big Discuss challenge upon psychism, you know, how do little conscious things come together to make Big conscious things. This has become known as the combination problem, but William James is actually the first person wrestling with this. I also like his

1:05:17 You know, the stuff he wrote on religion. You know people talk about religion, they talk about Pascal's wager. It's interesting Pascal's wager, but You need to read James if you're interested in that kind of stuff. His great paper The will to believe. He later thought I think rightly should have been called the right to believe.

1:05:34 And he was challenging this idea that A contemporary of his Clifford put forward, but later Bertram Russell on the other side put forward Yeah they In terms of belief, you follow the evidence. You all you need to do is follow the evidence and you've got a strictly

1:05:48 Anything beyond the evidence you can't go for. And James reflects it and said Well look it's a bit complicated, you know? The worry with going over the evidence is Or you might believe false things.

1:06:00 But there's another risk, isn't there? You might Not believe true things. To some extent he try to justify to some extent we can tentatively in certain limited circumstances where there is uncertainty. Where are rational

1:06:15 Argumentation and experiments can't settle matters. Maybe it can be rational. To choose to believe. And he he made a real case for that. And it was absolutely fascinating. And and you appreciate you're taking a risk. And you know you're not making an intellectu error because you know you're taking a risk.

1:06:31 You know you're going beyond the evidence. But you're in your right mind prepared to take that risk. It's just a beautiful discussion and all sorts of wonderful analogies and explorations. Everyone should read William James, he's uh Patron saint of great intellectual thinking.

1:06:47 If People. Needed to start with one, or if they were only going to read one. Where would you have them start? I would suppose the the The most recognizable of his writing.

1:06:59 for at least an American audience would probably be the varieties of religious. But would you start there or would you have people start somewhere else? The one I just mentioned, Will to believe, if if that sounded interesting to you, is fairly readable. But yeah, the other I mean, the varieties of religious experience That is still one of the best Explorations of Mystical experiences, the chapter on mystical experiences, you know, a lot of it's a psychological

1:07:24 Study in an attempt to Define. Mystical experiences and his definition still stands to this day. But at the end actually it's interesting. He says He c asked the question w would it be rational?

1:07:37 To trust. A mystical experience. Suppose I'm having this mystical experience that seems to me there's this Higher form of consciousness at the root of all things. Would it be rational to trust that? I think many of you would say Well no, it's just something funny going on in your brain, you know, it could be a delusion.

1:07:54 But James says well We all think it's okay. To trust. Our ordinary sensory experiences But

1:08:05 You know, that could be a delusion. We could be in the matrix. This could all be a dream. You could say, Well, we can test our senses. But only by using your sensors, so it's kinda circular. All knowledge has to start with just a decision. To trust your experience. It's a sort of double standard.

1:08:21 If you say it's okay to trust Ordinary sensor experiences. Fallible as they are. But it's not okay for a Someone having a mystical experience to trust what

1:08:31 That seems to be telling them about reality. There's a sort of double standard, what justifies that and I mean there's a big debate, but U you know, it it is a really important and challenging point in foundational thinkings about knowledge. Highly recommend William Jams. Also, if people want an adjunct to that, there's a book called The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences is a newer book, Twenty First Century Research and Perspectives by

1:08:55 A scientist named David Yaden. Y A D E N out of Johns Hopkins, and that is also worth taking a gander at if you are particularly interested in mystical experiences, what that means and the different I suppose flavors of reality that can entail. Let's Come back to Bertrand Russell and the way I'm gonna make this segue is I'm gonna read something from

1:09:21 your notes that you sent me as possible exploration. For this conversation. So your last book, Why? Explore the middle ground between God and atheism. Now I'm gonna paraphrase this just to make a third person or a second person, I guess.

1:09:37 You came out as a heretical Christian, which caused a big reaction, a heated discussion within the philosophical community. The traditional Christians say you weren't really a Christian because you didn't have the correct beliefs. quote unquote, and atheist philosopher saying that you'd lost your mind. Okay. And Bertrand Russell has a book called Why I Am Not a Christian. And uh I'm wondering you can edge into this however you would like, but I'm curious what you think he gets right or wrong. And then I would love for you just to explain.

1:10:11 What it means for you to be a heretical Christian. Maybe I could just do those the other way around,'cause it might still help the worm. Well I'm coming. Quite a journey really. I didn't think I would Return to religion. I mean, I was raised Catholic, actually, you know, going to church every week. I was a terrible altar boy.

1:10:30 I was always Forgetting to ring the bells at the right time and uh anyway. But by the time I was fourteen I decided God didn't exist and I refused to get confirmed. Upsetting my grandmother. My mum sent me to see the Priest who tried Pascal's wager on me, but uh

1:10:47 It didn't work. Um anyway, I you know, I spent the The next thirty is an atheist. But I think I've always been a spiritual person. You know, I've always Talk about mystical experience in some sense

1:10:59 Had a sense that there's A deeper reality at the core of things. But you know, I engage with it in my own way through Engagement with nature, meditation, yoga classes, you know, and so on. I was A part of the

1:11:16 Ever growing grouping of spiritual but not religious. More recently, I suppose I guess At least for me, I've come to see the value of The things I had in the r that religious community

1:11:29 in my upbringing. You know, that I think for all its faults, you know, I think religion has a unique way of Bringing the community together. You know, through Rituals that

1:11:41 Mark the changing of the seasons and the Big moments of life. You know, birth, coming of age, marriage, death. Through rich tradition, you know, going back thousands of years. And so like I th I suppose at some point it seemed to me that um

1:11:58 Being spiritual but not religious, and you know, I'm just talking for myself now. We're starting to feel a a bit maybe a bit lonely, a bit unstructured. Almost aimless and I guess I've come to think over time that and this is what my new book I've just started this week is on. There are ways of engaging with traditional religion.

1:12:16 Maybe get into That Avoid some of the real worries that people have with religion, dogmatic certainties, or you know, things we could go into. But which also allow you to gain some benefits, like

1:12:32 A community. Structured practice. A rich tradition. And you know, I suppose what I'm interested in is just I've come to find that works for me and I suppose I'd just like to

1:12:44 Raise that possibility for others. So I'm not here saying uh Oh, this is the one true faith you've got to believe. I'm just saying look I'm interested in different experiments in living and I think there's a way of engaging with religion. That perhaps not everyone is Fully

1:13:00 Aware off. And so that's what I'm trying to do there. But anyway, Burchard Russell, yeah. I've talked more about the sort of personal things there, but On the intellectual matters. Yeah, there's this bloody perennial debate between Believers and atheists, you know.

1:13:17 People like, Who side are you on? Richard Dawkins or the Pope, you know, who's right, which team are you on? And I I've just come to find Over time. I think Both sides of getting something right and something wrong. I think this things

1:13:33 Traditional believers. In God. At least the You know, Western gods struggle to explain like the horrific suffering. Why the hell would God allow Cancer and earthquakes and all that.

1:13:44 I think there's also things that Atheists, traditional atheists struggle to explain. One thing I've focused a lot on recent work in my Y book is The fine tuning of physics for life. This surprising discovery that for life to be possible Certain numbers in physic had to fall in an incredibly narrow range.

1:14:04 Such that it's actually incredibly improbable that a universe like ours would Have the right numbers for life just by chance. You know, that's something it's hard to make sense of on a normal atheistic picture. So what I tried to do in the Y Book really is just But let's just have a think about middle ground options. Maybe there are elegant middle ground options that can

1:14:24 Avoid the difficulties on both sides. I'm now coming to Russell, y you might think I'm like a politician. Dodging the question, but Well this fine tuning of physics for life Wasn't there.

1:14:35 When Russell was alive. It's just since the seventies, eighties, I mean the late nineties the cosmological constant, which is to do with dark energy and the acceleration of the universe. That was only nineteen ninety eight, I think. So this just wasn't there for Russell. And I I annoy people on X I've really wound people up by saying that Burch and Russell.

1:14:56 would probably believe in cosmic purpose now because he followed the evidence where it leads, but you know, the evidence wasn't there in his day. And uh, but I think he would have followed that evidence. It's hard for human beings to do, isn't it, to sort of You know, you get used to one thing and the evidence changes and They Economist Kane's

1:15:16 There's a famous incident. A journalist said to him. You didn't used to think that. And he said, Well, when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? That's really hard for human beings to do.

1:15:26 All right, so let's talk about Bertrand Russell following the evidence and cosmic purpose, because I I want to explore this. I know very little about I suppose how you might describe cosmic purpose and I would like to hear more. So when people hear you perhaps refer to the constants for life on earth, right? The thirty or so fundamental constants. I mean they're is an argument to be made that well, life would only appear if these things existed, therefore Yada yada yada. But we don't need to delve into that. What I'm curious about

1:15:54 Is When people hear you say that and that it is incredibly unlikely. To happen by chance. They might take that to imply

1:16:06 Some type of primary mover. AKA A god of some type. Does cosmic purpose Require.

1:16:18 Someone to be a theist. to believe in a god or gods. No, no, I mean I wouldn't go for the very traditional idea of God. As all knowing, all powerful, perfectly good, because then you've got the problem of suffering.

1:16:33 I'm bothered by What both sides struggle with And this is why I I annoy everybody. I'm I'm annoying both sides of this debate. I think there are options.

1:16:46 Middle ground options that can deal with the fine tuning. In terms of some kind of Cosmic purpose or goal directedness. Without going to the very traditional garden getting to suffering. So in the in the Y book I explore A few different possibilities.

1:17:03 One is Maybe laws of nature with purposes built into them. So we don't have some kind of mind behind the universe setting things up. There's just

1:17:16 A sort of fundamental tendency in reality. towards certain goals, maybe the emergence of life. Now this sounds a bit in itself a bit wacky and mystical and but actually a couple of our most Rigorous. Philosophers.

1:17:31 Daniel Nolan and John Hawthorne have actually given a very detailed, rigorous Mathematical account of what such a What we call teleological laws, so telos from the Greek purpose. Laws with purposes built into them. Would look like it's a little bit more.

1:17:48 So I think like the It ends up being You could just have a a scientific proposal of just a different way of thinking about Laws of nature. It's weird in a cultural sense. But but that is one option.

1:18:01 I mean Another option is Something Closer to the traditional god, but a tweak on it have explored the idea of a Maybe a god of limited powers?

1:18:12 Who's Just Not able to do whatever they want. And you know, I think we could be quite precise about what those limitations might be to yield the world we find. Or the simulation hypothesis, Nick Bostrom's famous for exploring and David Chalmers in his recent book, Reality Plus. You know, maybe we're in a computer simulation. And there's some

1:18:33 Random software engineer who set it all up. Very finally, uh I've talked too much already. The view I explore in most detail in the book is The idea that the universe itself is conscious. Which again sounds a bit extravagant at first, but

1:18:46 Actually, if you're already a panpsychist, I think that's already a plausible view. You already think perhaps that the universe is conscious. Because you think Fields are the fundamental physical things. Then it's perhaps not too much of a step to think with this fundamental conscious thing.

1:19:02 might have certain Goal directed states. Even if it's a very Alien, strange mind very different to us. I just think we need to just we get stuck in these dichotomies. Let's just explore these different options.

1:19:18 So question for you on the The intersection of of your Childhood. With Where you are now, I suppose, or maybe the trajectory.

1:19:29 How did you decide to become an atheist at age fourteen? Was it the Omnipotent. Omnibenevolent contradiction of suffering in the world? Was there something else that triggered it? How did you decide? On that.

1:19:44 I think it was a mix of things. Yeah, the problem of evil and suffering was part of it on the intellectual side. Also ethical things, you know, I thought Christianity at backward views on women and sexuality and you know, time I was questioning my sexuality and Also, I think I mean

1:20:01 I think fundamentally I just thought Christianity in particular was very unspiritual. I thought Buddhism It's spiritual, but Christianity's just about sort of Doing what the old guy in the sky wants so you get to heaven. But

1:20:15 What I've discovered more recently and this is part of why I've returned to this slightly nonstandard form of religion, engagement with religion. Is The mystical traditions of Christianity. Which have always been the

1:20:31 Right back to the start, but a perhaps more Prominent in the Eastern Orthodox Church. What There's less emphasis on sin. My childhood coffee, it was all about sin and

1:20:42 But for the Eastern Orthodox Church, this is nothing to do with God wanting to Find someone to punish for our sins. That's not a part of the picture at all. In fact That was invented by the Protestant reformers five hundred years ago, you know. A lot of people in the US think that's the essence of Christianity. Anyway, but for the Eastern Orthodox Church, the it's the fundamental story is about God and the universe.

1:21:06 Becoming one. Entering into a deep state of unity. That's really the core of it. And I mean this I had nothing about in my Catholic upbringing. But it's something that deeply resonates with me and you know

1:21:21 Makes sense a lot of my deeper spiritual experiences. I suppose, you know, it's those elements of mysticism I thought were in Just in Hinduism Buddhism. But are actually. present not just in Christianity, but you know, where you've got Kabbalah in Judaism, you've got Sufism in Islam.

1:21:38 That's what I'm researching at the moment, these wonderful Islamic traditions. I'm reading a book, a classic book looking at the exploration between Stoicism that I know you're interested in, and Sufism in in Islamic that the mysticism of Islamic philosophy. So yeah, so I think there's always been that mystical component and a way of engaging that's You know, less dogmatic and certain. Maybe you don't know it's true, maybe it's something you hope is true. Maybe you take it as a beautiful metaphor. There are these ways of doing it. And I think

1:22:07 Churches and synagogues would be a more interesting place. If they were full of people more full of people. Engaging with it in this way. I l you know, I I like conservatives. I don't hate conservatives and traditionalists. But I think there can be a natural balance. Oh

1:22:23 Progressives and conservatives, you know. The conservatives saying, you know, let's not throw everything away too quickly and the progressives saying, Hold on, we need to update a bit and In religion it's gone a little bit too much dominated by traditionalists, and I think it would be nice if we Mixed it up a bit. And that's what I'm Trying to press in my curm the book I've just started.

1:22:43 We're gonna come back to your deeper some of your deeper spiritual experiences. I'm wondering if you could share one or two, but I also wanna say that A lot of people listening or watching probably associate me with Stoic philosophy, stoicism, but I actually have more books and more poetry related to Sufism in my house. Than anything related to Stoicism. I have quite a bit on stoicism, but

1:23:07 Also sponsored a statue here in Austin. In a statue garden and this particular statue is of uh Saint Francis of Assisi. And we could talk about Merton. I mean there are origin stories that involve Miss Tool. slash direct experience in

1:23:25 most, if not all, of the major traditions people listening would recognize and uh the immortality key is actually Quite interesting read for people who haven't checked it out. Brian Murarescu. Um But let's come back to your Deeper experiences. Are you willing to share? One or two of those?

1:23:43 Yeah. Yeah, well I'll have to get some Recommendations from Susan. Let me think. I mean I suppose what I've found

1:23:52 But I've been thinking recently. Is What I like about this Eastern Orthodox Way of thinking about Mystical experience.

1:24:03 Is that It's very close to certain things we find in Hindu mysticism like Advaita Vedanta. But The end goal That you're aiming at.

1:24:16 still involves Love and sociality. I mean I was Watching something with by very good Hindu mystic who I'm actually gonna be in conversation with

1:24:27 In a few months. Talking about you know metaphor that The ultimate goal is With the analogy of an ice cube melting in the ocean, you know, you just lose your identity, you're sort of absorbed in the divine, right? Whereas

1:24:42 In the Eastern Orthodox conception of Christianity the ultimate goal is Still It involves unity, but still difference, right? It's unity With God, with other people.

1:24:56 I mean I s I suppose what I see Reflected in in the Eucharist and It's the the sociality. A mystical sociality that is A deep sense of kind of binding

1:25:08 People together and to something bigger. So I suppose that's part of what's really resonated with me. And This is not some big

1:25:16 Overwhelming mystical experience, but it's Making sense of those Experiences That have always been there at Uh my

1:25:27 More spiritual moments. I find actually that the soft light of First very early morning or Dus I find somehow Most spiritual I don't know why that is.

1:25:40 Uh making sense of these exposure. Actually, we're just I mean, just one more thing It was just Ash Wednesday this week with the start of Lens. You know, I'm I'm in a Anglican church where you Get the ashes and It really

1:25:54 Touches me what they say when they say Remember that you are dust. And to dust you shall return. I think what it does to me is Yeah, I've had some worldly success.

1:26:07 In academia, to an extent in public stuff and I think at moment of that being done, I think it was maybe last year I think I had a Very vivid sense of How m my sense of myself.

1:26:20 Was getting a bit reliant on that and dependent. On You know. Success and You know, my sense of who I was.

1:26:30 And not just being told. You know you kinda brought me a bit to tears that you are dust and to dust you sh You know and I think that's I've been reading actually the Great Christian Mystic.

1:26:40 Tried for heresy, Meister Eckart. And reading about you know, I always thought I guess the focus on sin that was always from my childhood. I thought like Again for Lent, you know, abstaining. I thought that's about sin and punishing yourself and you've got to feel sad. But the way Eckhart sees it is. And the way he interprets

1:26:59 Hostages. from the Bible about sacrifice. It's just about Getting away from your reliance on these things, your sense of yourself, your sense of happiness, getting down to something more real and fundamental at the core. And so

1:27:16 Some of the ways in which Through engaging with a rich tradition I've Delve deeper into and explore. My spiritual experiences, I suppose. So you said the next thirty years as an atheist. So it seems like you've in some form come back into the fold. Maybe you have some sunglasses and a fake mustache, but you've come back into the fold in some sense.

1:27:38 What triggered that? What was the I mean, maybe the straw that broke the camel's back isn't the right metaphor to use, but was there a conversation, a moment, a period of Difficulty.

1:27:52 What Catalyzed that. I say again it's As with leaving, it was a mixture of things. I I could talk about the intellectual stuff we've already touched on, I suppose, was starting to think Both sides of the

1:28:06 God atheism debate of something right and something wrong and There's gotta be more to it, though. There's gotta be more like direct experience. That was the intellectual stuff. That was the intellectual stuff. And that's what led to my why book, which was earlier, at least when I wrote it, it was earlier to all this. But then on the spiritual level, well I guess it's what I said learning more about just from Conversations with Different kinds of

1:28:29 Christian thinkers Joanna Lyden Hague. Is a young panpsychist theologian. Who writes on how Pan psychism. Fits much better with a

1:28:40 spiritual conception of reality and Actually, I should say there's a bit of a divide on this. Many panpsychists like David Chalmers, Luke Roloff's. Angela Mendelovici, a very secular atheist. I think Chalmers is a bit annoyed that I'm getting into religion. It's like we were trying to get this taken to serious science. Ha ha.

1:28:59 Yeah, people are gonna think it's all just religion. But other Panpsychists had a hassle murk, Ittai Shani Do you see a consonance? with Panpsychism spiritual. So learning about the mystical traditions, learning about these conceptions of God where God and the universe are not totally distinct. I'm not even sure I want to use the word God, you know, but I've started now.

1:29:19 Tricky one that. Yeah. Maybe there's some overlap. Maybe like a Venn diagram, you know, there's Got him one side. Us on the other and the sort of overlap in the middle. I I interpret my Sterk Art as

1:29:32 holding something like that. Maybe that's why he got in trouble. So that was part of it and I don't know, so I mean w one final thing, I don't know how much of interest this is, but I mean I always have problems with the resurrection. Because I mean one w no it's not just the being miracles, although that's part of it. You know, my answer to why there's suffering Is

1:29:50 If there is a God in whatever sense They can't do anything about it, right? Or this just There isn't a God who's letting that happen. But if there's a god who can raise people from the dead You know, then we're back to Well why d why don't you do that more often, you know previous

1:30:04 But anyway, was reading um one of my favourite Biblical scholars, guy called Dale Allison. Who's he's a wonderful free thinker. He's always Exploring both sides of a position and Ending up places he wouldn't like to be, maybe on a certain point of

1:30:22 Biblical interpretation, he'd like to be more liberal and he ends up having a slightly more consequent Anyway, but he's got a wonderful recent book on on the resurrection, exploring Non standard versions of the resurrection. Were for example that The resurrection experiences of the first Christians were visionary. Almost mystical experiences.

1:30:42 rather than seeing and touching a body. And um I was debating that this it's been a busy week. I was debating that with On Wednesday with I don't know if you've heard of William Lane Craig. Who is perhaps one of the biggest, most influential Christian philosophers.

1:30:57 But he's very, very, very, very traditional. You know. I mean if you're not a Christian You'll go into hell. You know, very traditional and

1:31:06 We had a a lovely, very, very fiery debate this week. Uh and as I knew he would be, he studies Mr Baiking components and he He was straight in there. Panpsychism is, you know, incoherent, unscientific. This view of the resurrection is unhistorical. Doesn't make sense and but anyway, we had a I responded in kinda we had that's not out yet, but um maybe it will be out but but yeah, so I suppose it was those three things that's been a bit long winded, it was

1:31:35 The intellectual stuff, that these middle ground options between God and atheism. It was the spiritual stuff discovering these mystical traditions. That resonate. With me deeply. It was This

1:31:49 Weird view of the resurrection. It was discovering actually there's there's been a big movement in philosophy of religion, thinking about the nature of Faith. Reading actually Karen Armstrong. A wonderful historian. Of religion. Who has argued that this focus on belief

1:32:04 Being so important in religion. Is like a modern corruption. She traces it back actually, if we look at the word Pistus In the New Testament that we translate as belief.

1:32:16 It actually doesn't mean belief in the modern sense. It has connotations of Trust, engagement, commitment. And interestingly, when we first translated the Bible into English in was it fifteenth, six sixteenth, seventeenth century The word Believe the English where belief was closer to that.

1:32:33 It's close to the The German word belieben to love, it had connotations of Commitment, engagement. From a Shakespeare play. All's well that ends well, I think. There's a character Bertram who's

1:32:45 Looking down on Helena cause she's lowborn. And he's told. Believe not thy disdain Believe not thy disdain. So that means sort of don't have your heart in it. So actually then the word believe changes meaning with the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Now it means just sort of

1:33:03 Intellectual commitment to a hypothesis about reality. Right, so now we think that's w you read the New Testament and you feel like Jesus talking about Belief. And you think oh He really cares about, you know, what propositions of reality you believe. That's what salvation about Whereas actually it was more about commitment, having your heart in things. So I think realising there are the

1:33:24 You know, the ways of engagement. This is definitely true. I felt I was like in my Catholic upbringing. This is the answer. It's definitely true. You can be highly uncertain. You can take it as a metaphor. You can Take it as a hope, you can trust it, you can be a bit heretical and So yeah, all of these things opened up. This way of engaging and once I went down there, I've just got so much out of it. It's

1:33:45 The structure, the community The depth of engagement has really worked for me. Let's dig into that just a little bit. I would love to ask a few more questions. Because a few things hop to mind. The first, and I have in fact checked this. I'm no religious historian. So my apologies to anyone who's offended by this, but I recall someone credible, I won't mention their name, saying to me, They're like, you know, it's really a shame. There's so much friction oftentimes, at least in the Middle East, between

1:34:12 Jews and Muslims because They have a few things in that are quite similar. And The way it was positioned to me was In Christianity it's very important what you believe, but in uh Judaism

1:34:26 And in Islam it's more important perhaps what you do. And heavily ritualized. That can also be true in Christianity, of course. And I've thought about that, and then I'm gonna make an awkward transition to my friend AJ Jacobs, who wrote a book called The Year of Living Biblically, in which he tried to follow all the rules of the

1:34:47 Old and New Testament. It's it's intended to be A funny but also very informative read. I learned a lot about religion from that book. But the w the way he put it. When he was describing his upbringing, he was raised Jewish, he said, uh paraphrasing, I was raised Jewish, but you know, I am to Judaism as Olive Garden is to Italian. So Olive Garden is of course just this fast food chain here where you can get free breadsticks.

1:35:18 So he was he was Socially. And culturally Jewish, but not ideologically, religiously. Jewish at that point. And

1:35:29 This is gonna be a whole word salad of things I'm throwing out. But I wonder then How Well, you can build a community. Or have that social fabric that religion provides, which

1:35:43 I uh am often hungry for. If I'm being honest. But I think there's Uncontroversially.

1:35:51 An epidemic. of loneliness and there are a million reasons for that. only some of which I'm sure we're even aware of, but mental illness, diagnoses of chronic anxiety, treatment resistant depression, et cetera, all seem to be in some type of Parabolic incline. And

1:36:09 I think connection is I don't want to say the antidote, but one of the strong kind of countervailing options for addressing that. And religion is appealing on that level. My parents started going to church Mm, maybe fifteen years ago, after never going to church, precisely for that reason. But I'm wondering how well you can cohere as a community if you don't truly

1:36:31 believe. There's an article, I suppose an essay. Called Why Strict Churches Make Strong Churches. that talks about this and the free loader problem and things like that, but What has been your experience in terms of the benefit you derive from a community and the degree of belief

1:36:50 Yeah. Scripture. Because man, oh man, like uh if we're talking about Deuteronomy Leviticus, I mean if you start taking All that stuff, literally. It's uh

1:37:01 Paints a pretty rough picture for things. How do you think about that? Like is True belief in scripture a prerequisite. for adherence to the type of rituals and so on that help bond a community.

1:37:16 Or Is that not the case? These are great questions that I'm still reflecting on and I'm still thinking about And I think you're certainly right.

1:37:28 in the present moment at least in in the Jewish community There's more of an openness to This being a cultural phenomenon and belief being Less important I remember what was the context now, a young Jewish woman

1:37:45 Tweeted at me. Maybe when I was talking about this religious stuff to me to Oh yeah, my my rabbi said when I was gonna have my I said, Well I don't believe in God and and the Rabbit said, Look no no no the don't have any gods but me. Right. So it's a negative doesn't matter if you don't believe at all. Just don't have any other gut. That's a nice choice. I suppose what I'd like to see is just a little bit more openness. To that.

1:38:11 In the Christian community and To what extent is it possible? I mean certainly Karen Armstrong thinks. This kind of Focus strong focus on belief is a more a more recent adaptation. So her book, I mean her her great book, The Case for God.

1:38:29 Which is a bad title I think'cause you think it's gonna be Yeah, I think it's gonna be some proof of God or something. Yeah, yeah. It's not at all. It's a History of religion and she divides religion into two epochs. Part one Which she calls the unknown god.

1:38:45 Which goes from fifty thousand B C To fifteen hundred AD. Yeah. And then what she calls the modern God is from fifteen hundred AD to the present moment. So she thinks there is some radical shift.

1:38:58 in this focus on you know, with the scientific revolution and the Protestant information on Belief which propositions do you believe? Of course it it has always been true in Christianity from the Early centuries at least we've got You know, from the full century.

1:39:14 when the Roman Empire under Constantine became Christian, you know, we have he got this council and we have the official creeds But it's another question It's a subtly different question. Did you have to believe them? So there's a big fight about Which are the correct ones, but

1:39:28 Do you have to believe them? Armstrong thinks if we're to be more Accurate historically. What believe should mean is commit. So you should be saying, instead of saying I believe in one God, Father Almighty, you should be saying, I commit. I engage with that. I have my heart in that.

1:39:45 That's really what they meant by those terms. And you know, the emphasis on the lit the non literal, you know, with the mystical Traditions that have always been there that they would look at An allegorical understanding As in some sense deeper I mean Origin, who I've been researching for this new book, who was

1:40:02 When's origin second century, I think. He was a in a sense a bit of a heretic. But he was sort of before it was properly defined. But he he's one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the early days, one of the fathers of the church. And he had this Idea of the three levels of understanding scripture. The first level is the literal meaning, you know, what's stuff what people did, if there's miracles and so Yeah, that's okay.

1:40:26 But then the next stage is the moral. Right, what is the moral meaning? And then the deeper and higher stage he thought was the allegorical. And what is going on here at a spiritual allegorical level. What would be an example of an allegorical

1:40:42 Understanding. Uh A portion of the Bible or story. Let's just take the central idea of Jesus, right? I mean What has always resonated with me with that

1:40:55 Even when I my long period of not being any part of this was The almost sort of turning upside down of worldly values. That we're identifying God. Not with the king in the castle, you know.

1:41:08 But with the naked Executed peasant. Right, the guy who hangs out without casters and that was I mean his wonderful recent book Dominion by Tom Holland, which is again a history of the influence of Christianity. What a bloody radical idea that was. It was ridiculous.

1:41:26 That you know, some of the earliest Critiques of Christianity. Very very early was sort of a little bit more. The figure of the crucified Jesus with a donkey head on. It was just ridiculous that this was the most humiliating punishment.

1:41:40 And what this is supposed to be God? I mean this is whether that's literally true, whether But what it stands for To me it reveals something Deep and ultimate whether or not it's literally true. Deep and ultimate about what is important and what is of value.

1:41:56 The first shall be last, the last shall be first, and I don't know, sometimes with Christianity at the moment in the US it doesn't s it seems like this is a little bit forgotten, but Holland talks about what an impact it had on the Roman Empire. That suddenly you know the poor and the weak. had moral value. Yeah.

1:42:14 Roman aristocrats, this is like What you talking about? Another thing to actually, I've always thought, you know. I don't have a traditional view on sexual ethics in Christianity. But he talks about actually How valuable.

1:42:26 No sex before marriage was In those early days, Because we're talking of a time when slaves and women Had no rights. Yeah.

1:42:37 And To an extent. Obviously a limited extent. Yeah. Prevent rape because

1:42:44 If you were gonna be a Christian Roman. Yeah to Wait till marriage and you know. Obviously this didn't work, but you can see a role for it.

1:42:52 Maybe it's a role that We don't need to so much cling to that. original meaning. I mean like in the way here is a good example of what's changed with Christianity. It used to be totally universal, you couldn't charge interest. That was a sin.

1:43:06 Now you know these days. Yeah, usually. These days no Christians that I know of hold that. 'Cause of our understanding of the modern market economy, we reinterpret these things. But what about being gay, right? What

1:43:19 Why haven't we re understood that? I mean, many Christians have, but many Christians haven't in a modern understanding of sexuality. I think that's because there are fewer liberals and progressives in the church now, you know. I mean it has changed. It has i in my church and church we have We haven't gone all the way to gay marriage, but we got blessings on gay couples and but yeah, so I I what my aspiration really is, you know Get more liberals involved in these things not to get rid of the traditionalists, but

1:43:44 To have that beautiful, healthy Equilibrium. There's always been that. You know, there's always been radicals, there's always been progressives that have been mixing it up and moving it forward. Aquinas was Bloody radical at the time. Now it's the Official

1:43:59 Catholic Church philosophy, you know, so I think there's possibilities that are unexplored here. Without your Childhood experience. With

1:44:11 Catholicism. Do you think you would have returned to in some form or re-entered? Christianity or do you think Since you mentioned At one point at least you felt that

1:44:23 Buddhism or Hinduism were more spiritual. Do you think you would have to be a little bit more than that? Perhaps Ended up in a different camp. Slightly different camp. One thing I will say just to preface that is

1:44:35 It's not obviously wrong to me that you will Choose what you feel. Culturally comfortable with Because I think these matters are Very uncertain.

1:44:47 I mean, if you get to a point where you think no this religion, this other religion different to the one I was raised with definitely, definitely true. Then you know, okay, probably the rational thing to do is to convert, but If you're like In a situation where It's very uncertain whether any religion is true. It's very uncertain which and

1:45:05 I think it makes sense if you're you're from a Muslim background. That that's Fits with your identity and It would be such a shift to become a Christian. Maybe even if you think if you happen to think, I'm not saying They should think this, but if they think Coshanti is a bit more likely to be true, but if it's still so uncertain

1:45:23 You know, I think i it could be rational to just stay with What's gonna really work for you and fit with your community and your identity? I I don't think God Cars that much which Which team you're on? William Lane Craig w would absolutely kill me for saying that. But uh I suppose it matters. I suppose it matters if you think you're going to hell if you're not Christian. He's got a good answer. I researched him a lot for this debate we had this week and

1:45:46 I discovered he he's got a good answer to the question of what about countries Who've never heard of the gospel. Right, and so don't become Christian. You know, more so in history, but even to the present day. His answer is well They wouldn't have

1:45:59 Turn to Jesus anyway. 'Cause God knows what you're gonna do. and God set things up that they wouldn't have become Christians anyway. So it's okay. That they go into hell. This is yeah.

1:46:09 Anyway, I mean this is this he's the I mean he's he's a great he's a great philosopher, a very bright guy. Um Probably the most influential Christian thinker at the moment, so

1:46:20 We need to balance things out. That's a tough one. That type of like sort of theological determinism. It raises questions about the value of all those missionaries that have been sent about. Or then we get into free will and like all sorts of stuff. He just He's got a complex story. He does believe in free will. He thinks it's compatible to say you've got free will, but God knows what you're gonna freely do. This is part of what we debated, actually. I don't think that makes coherent sense. But anyway, just to answer your question, I mean who knows? It's partly cultural, but Yeah, I do find things of I mean this

1:46:53 Eastern Orthodox way of Mystical tradition makes a lot of sense in my spiritual experiences for the I think at the moment for me more so than the Hindu stuff I used to believe in, for me personally at least. And and I just I do love the teaching and character of Jesus and I just think he was I did a talk recently. I did a talk recently at a very, very

1:47:15 right wing audience in Oxford on this stuff. And I said, those of you haven't read the Bible, Jesus is pretty damn woke. But anyway. That's a hell of a Molotov cocktail of an opener for that audience. You had a bit of a gas. Yeah.

1:47:32 Yeah, the story of the good Samaritan, right, which is Jesus w told that story'cause he was asked. Who is my neighbour? Right. And

1:47:41 Why did he tell a story about Samaritan?'Cause they were the hated ethnic group. Of his listeners. So you know, I I said to this audience, if he was telling that story today, the good Samaritan would be, I don't know, a Muslim immigrant or a trans woman or then I did I thought, try and not have a bit of going against polarization, or maybe if Jesus was talking to A load of liberals, maybe the good Samaritan to be wearing a MAGA hat, who knows? I don't know. But you know, basically say, look The people you hate. Or the people who are different.

1:48:10 They should be so but that's just like radically light years ahead of its time. I mean Tom Holland makes this good case that the ideas of human dignity which Shaped the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement were rooted in These radical ideas of equal human dignity. So I do think there's you know, there's something very special for me there, but

1:48:32 At the end of the day, these matters are very uncertain. So aside from the I'm I have to ask again, forgive me. But aside from the Beauty. of the liminal spaces during the crepuscular hours of dawn and dusk.

1:48:47 And the beautiful red of a sunset. Experienced anything you would describe as a mystical experience? I would say not full blown, no not to the Two terms I could use, I I suppose I think a mystical experience is the more full on thing, but then there's this Wonderful term numinous.

1:49:05 To mean the sort of sense a sense of Maybe mini mystical experience. Mystical light. I mean I did psychedelics when I was a teenager. And You know, had some very deep experiences. I don't know why I didn't sort of in

1:49:20 In my twenties and thirties but now I've got Young kids. It's hard to find time to Do some psychedelics. Dimension. Have a have a ten day meditation retreat. Annika Harris is always telling me I've got to do ten ten day meditation. I don't know why I didn't actually do that. When I had the chance. But yeah, I mean I

1:49:39 As I get older Actually before I propose to my wife Didn't know I was gonna propose, I was talking about like When I retire. What do you do when you retire you don't play golf as I wanna have a sort of semi monastic existence, you know, kind of long period. And she was like, Why are you telling me this?

1:49:56 I don't know. I just wanted to know. She's like oh fuck, what did I sign up for here? Well I wanted her to know this before I asked her we were in the mountains in Austria and then we went outside and I said she wanna marry him. Anyway. But uh yeah, so I think I think I would like to Yeah, maybe the kids are as as I get older. I don't wanna carry on Trying to be what am I trying to do? I don't know. be successful in whatever I'm trying to do for the rest of my

1:50:23 religion has helped me with the thing. Yeah, you never find happiness that way, do you? It's he's never enough, you know, he's uh want to sell more books or get more views or get more money or I have an idea that I wanna As I get older.

1:50:38 Slowly lapse into monasticism. Maybe we're better. Help from some ayahuasca or something. But yeah. So maybe I'll have more. Mystical experience at that point. But I think at the moment I would say I'm confined to the numinous and to that extent, you know, it's evidentially it's it's not that significant. You know, I I'm open to it could be a delusion, you know, but I'm choosing

1:50:59 Thanks to William James's inspiration, I'm choosing to trust these numinous experiences. And to trust this. Christian mystical way of understanding them and to work with them and engage with them and And um Loving it, I'm getting a lot out of it. And you know, people think religion's all about the afterlife or something, but I've found

1:51:17 Living in hope of a greater purpose has made me less bothered about my personal success and has just really opened me up a lot more to just Enjoy what the present moment has to offer. Friends, family, and so on. So I wanna explain something I I said earlier, which was related to the

1:51:35 Number of books on Sufism. And The reason for that is not a particular interest in Islam, although I do think there are Interesting.

1:51:46 aspects of that to explore. And if you're interested in Dune, the book and not the movies, although I thought the movies were w very well adapted, but they basically stripped all Arabic and Islamic influence from the book. Like Lisan Al Gaib. One of the many. Arabic phrase is the tongue of the unseen. So digging into some of the etymological origins of the words used in Dune adds another layer of fascination to it. But

1:52:11 The reason for these books is Because I enjoy the poetry. And I find the poetry to be beautiful and capture for me. the I suppose essence of

1:52:27 Mystical experience which I've been fortunate enough to have myself on a number of occasions. Incredibly well without using the G word or other words that I rightly or wrongly have developed somewhat of a mild allergic reaction to Right. So Christian mystics have some beautiful writing, but it it tends to be a little heavy

1:52:49 On God and Jesus for my And not for my taste, it's just that these strong connotations lead my mind to wander. when I want to be immersed in the poetry itself.

1:53:01 And so if we're looking at say Halaliza Gaffori's relatively new translations of Rumi as an example, or much of the poetry of Hafez, both of which I would recommend. I I can work with taverns. I can work with getting drunk on wine. I can work with Many of the metaphors that are used.

1:53:23 The caravan. I mean many of these Evocat phrases. are enough to immerse me in the language. And I think what's Trying to be transmitted. without pulling me into some type of political distraction.

1:53:39 Or childhood experience that subtracts rather from adds to the experience. So a lot of it is poetry. Not all, but a lot of it is certainly poetry. And then broadly speaking, I suppose mystics And I'm sure people would disagree with this, but

1:53:56 Accounts of firsthand experience with what they may consider divine. These make for fascinating. Reading for me, and certainly If you look at If you really take a microscope to the origin stories of a lot of these religions, I mean, it becomes very plausible that most, if not all, of them started with direct experience of some type.

1:54:20 that rhymes with many of the descriptions you would find in the books that I'm looking at on my bookshelves as an example. So Stoicism can be a little sterile. I'd say stoicism for me Incredibly helpful. Incredibly powerful as a tool for

1:54:39 Reducing suffering, but Yeah. Doesn't to my reading of it give you a whole lot in terms of increasing joy. And subtraction alone doesn't add the good.

1:54:52 So for that. I tend to stray from Stoicism into Epicureanism and Different types of mysticism and so on.

1:55:01 So that's That's the background. That's all absolutely. Well I'd love to get some of those Recommendations maybe I'll just

1:55:10 But for the CP literature and Poetry and yeah, it sounds That is really working for you and and that's wonderful and Yeah, I mean I th I I think you're definitely right that uh that

1:55:21 The great religions do seem to begin with experiences. I mean I mean the Christian case it's seem to be what they called the resurrection seem to be This explosion of

1:55:35 strong experiences that the early Christians had. After Jesus had died and You can make of that what you will. I prefer to think of it as visionary rather than seeing and touching a body, but there does seem to been some Historians thing I mean, even atheist, I mean Bart Ehrman is our best atheist Bible scholar. Well certainly concede that there were these

1:55:55 radical experiences by people like Peter and Mary Magdalene, um the kickstart of the the Christian movement. So I I think you're right, it comes back to Spirit. But I mean I share your Issues with the connotations of The word Jesus, the word God, and the You know First of all I'm trying to do is shift things. I'm actually in w one thing I wrote on this when I had my uh Going public as a heretical Christian, I wrote this thing for Eon magazine.

1:56:20 People might be interested in um And I I borrowed something from um Another writer wh whose name escapes me now. Rather than using the word Jesus Use the Jew Yeshua. Just to kinda

1:56:32 Just to defuse it a little bit. A certain kind of US Christian a certain kind of very distinctive Which is not what I'm talking about and not my experience. And the word God as well, yeah. I'm uh well, what do you think I should use for God in this book? What should Should I you know the trans I just talk about the transcendent Actually, do you know William James used the term the more With a capital M.

1:56:57 You know, or the divine or yeah, I don't know, so I'm still wrestling with and Divine's a tricky. And I'm gonna get a bunch of angry posts on on social media. I don't have anything against on some fundamental level, the word God or anything with Jesus Either. It's just that

1:57:20 Oftentimes God is not defined well enough to justify the life or death debates and fighting that happens around the term, if that makes sense. Now there are a lot of words that cause Trouble. in life if not defined. I should also just qualify when I mentioned the direct experience.

1:57:39 I was Not referring to Necessarily. the stories in the Bible but also the possibility that for instance

1:57:49 The acacia tree. is is prevalent in parts of the Middle East. The root bark of which it might be the leaves, actually. Somebody could correct me here. I might be mixing things up. contain DMT.

1:58:04 And NDMT, and then also the prevalence of Syrian Rue, which contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors. What else is a combination of those two things? Ayahuasca as an example. So The point being to render the N N DMT bioactive, it is entirely possible that people in the ancient world as People and animals. By the way, I've figured out.

1:58:27 That certain psychoactives Can be sort of orally. Bioavailable. This comes back to Brian Morarescu and some of his writing if people want to explore that. But This is definitely it's definitely a clear and present topic on my mind. The place of religion and the seemingly

1:58:47 People might uh Come after me for this also, but like evolved instinct. for something resembling religion. I don't know if it's functional, if it's vestigial, but

1:58:59 Could be that and this would be my position, that I don't think humans are unique at all in being conscious, but I do think we may be unique in our awareness of mortality and ultimate death. And That presents quite a quandary. And religion offers some at the very least. Solve for that.

1:59:20 Anyway, that isn't a very pointed question. It's more of a A rambling. Fascinating possibilities, the role of um psychedelic substances in formation of religion. And you know, I would say that wouldn't undermine it. Right. I think that doesn't mean these experiences are delusions or

1:59:38 Yeah, and I've gotta hope I think as as we have engaged more with psychedelics and There is more of an openness in Actually, you know what, I mean I wrote this book I modestly titled Why the Purpose of the Universe I mean it's a sim a similar book he's written. Ten years ago.

1:59:53 More than ten years ago, fifteen years ago nearly, by the uh great philosopher Thomas Nagel. Called Mind and Cosmos. And he got absolutely destroyed in reviews. He was really people saying oh he's he's lost his mind, he's Whereas Thomas Negli's a better philosopher than me. It was a bet I'm not saying this is a better book.

2:00:13 But it had a much warmer reception. It got a five star review in popular science magazine. It got you know I'm not honestly not saying this to boast. I'm not I just it's a sign of cultural change. Most of the reviews said. I don't agree with this, but it's a good book. But anyway, I think that's a real sign of that there's a greater openness To

2:00:33 Some of these things that go it's a need greater openness to spirit. I think new atheism is a bit Asey now, isn't it? And I think there's great openness to spirituality. I suppose I'm Exploring.

2:00:45 Whether that can connect with traditional religion in a very uncertain, mildly heretical way and Whether For some people could could get something out of that and I'm just Trying out that option, I suppose, if you like.

2:01:00 Something interesting seems to be happening, I think. For sure. I I remember a few years ago I was at uh an event and the the topic of the table. We were organized into small groups for every dinner, and you would have set topics and somebody would Try to Facilitate.

2:01:20 the said topic or question and the topic was something along the lines of So what are your predictions for the next three to five years. This was I guess two or three years ago. And One of the People at my table was one of the

2:01:36 strongest figures, biggest figures in the Evangelical. Christian movement in the United States. And We all had a fantastic conversation. I ended up going

2:01:48 First or second. And my answer was I think there's going to be an explosion. Of Interest in religions that have seen an Exodus

2:02:00 On some level over the last few decades and there's also gonna be a proliferation of new religions, new churches. To meet The

2:02:12 Hard to verbalize needs of a populace who is struggling with Pervasive and acute loneliness. And that The ability to absorb

2:02:26 The Mass communication. through social media and separate the signal from the noise from a Sort of scientific. like rational materialist worldview is gonna become so hard.

2:02:40 I'm not saying it's not a worthwhile objective, but so hard and really impossible for the vast majority of people who are not trained to filter through those things and don't have first hand access to scientists that There will be for all of those reasons and more A return to religion. And if you look at also then adding

2:03:00 The accelerant. Of psychedelics to that, which I have very mixed views on these days, by the way. Which is just to say, like the Elusinian mysteries, okay, if you have a handful of people after a long time are inducted into consuming some derivative of ergot, which would be similar to say LSD.

2:03:19 That's one thing, but when you have The potential of Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people taking these substances. Nothing like that has ever happened before in the history of humankind. So we'll see what type of mixed blessing that is. But It's been fascinating to see

2:03:35 how many new churches have been established in the US which on some level I think are largely created to provide constitutional protection if you are using psychedelics as a sacrament, right? So it's a legal protection. But how Once the horses are out of the barn.

2:03:53 And people who formed these churches and religions, they actually become Interesting. in and of themselves as religions, even without the added psychedelic sacraments. Say former conservative Mormons in Utah splintering off and creating religions that incorporate both Christianity and psychedelic use. And I mean there's some itch

2:04:19 that these things whether the sort of Abrahamic Traditional religions or the newer religions. Scratch. that is it's difficult to put a finger on, but it's also pretty hard to refute.

2:04:32 It seems to me. I don't know. Yeah. I mean I'm just I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm I mean, there's been an increase in paganism here and uh My wife's not religious, I you know I

2:04:43 Take the kids to church on my own and um She was thinking of Exploring Wicker at some point. I would I would've loved to say in church never so where's your wife say Oh she's a witch but uh Yeah, I don't know, I just see. For me, I think spirituality is important, and I think

2:05:01 More and more people appreciate that there's a role for Something that Structure that brings No there are powerful forces.

2:05:11 In the world. Powerful for something, hatred, division, you know, something that The grassroots brings people together. Connects them to something greater. You know?

2:05:20 I I I suppose that's what I believe in and that's what I would like to encourage. I'm trying one way of doing that. Engaging with the in a slightly different way with the traditional religions. But you know, I'm excited if other people are trying different things and um Let's see where it goes. Let's see where it goes. Indeed. Two last questions. These are pretty quick ones, I suspect. This is the billboard question. So if you could put

2:05:44 Anything on a Billboard. Metaphorically speaking, to get it in front of Millions, hundreds of millions of people take your pick. Can't be anything commercial, of course, but it could be a quote, an image, doesn't need to be your quote.

2:05:58 Anything at all, something you'd want to convey to a lot of people. Do you have any thoughts for what you would put on it? As always, I'm torn between the sort of the more intellectual things that the drier things or all the things to do with kind of meaning and I mean, on the former, I suppose I'm more passionate about the importance of philosophy and we need to Sometimes you can't just do experiments, sometimes you need to make judgment calls, but that's kind of boring and dry. I mean I suppose in terms of more Meaning of existence kind of things. I think Touching on what we said earlier, I suppose, I think one of the things I feel I've

2:06:28 Learn as I've got older is The importance of trying to Not start from What do I want? What's gonna make me successful?

2:06:38 To try and orientate yourself to What contribution can I make? How can I make the world A slightly better place. If your fundamental life goal is

2:06:50 Making me more than successful. You know, that's not gonna end well, you know,'cause it's never enough. It never I mean, I think I'm kinda lucky that I'm not that bothered about money, I'm not really into power really. I don't really but I do have a bit of an ego, do you know what I mean? I do wanna B. respected philosophers but that yeah, it's never enough You're always sort of jealous of someone who's doing better.

2:07:12 So I think The more one can try. And it's not easy right to just continually orient your life to Reality outside of yourself and just

2:07:23 Trying to make a contribution. That's watchy. That's what I do in prayer, actually. I Pray last thing at night and meditate. First thing in the morning. So I think you know I said

2:07:32 Talking to God at night, listening to God in the morning. And you know, I think if I just orientate myself to sort of Try and Never ha works perfectly, but Try and make your life goal. making some kind of contribution and

2:07:45 And I find that just Takes the pressure off you and does really just free free you up. For sure. To just Enjoy what the present moment has to offer. So yeah, so I suppose it reminded me I was trying to think you're talking about billboards, you you're saying about this and and I I was thinking it made me think Of these signs you stop in the wall saying

2:08:05 Don't ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. You know, that's in a sort of spirit of nationalist war effort. That's not what I'm getting at, but maybe, you know, something like. Don't start from what do I want, start from How can I contribute? And I I sort of think happiness flows from that. So something like that, a bit more I need an editor, don't I? So it's sharpened up a bit will be on the billboard. Yeah.

2:08:27 We'll take it to Madison Avenue. We'll figure it out. And Philip, where are the best places for people to find you? Is it uh PhilipGoff Philosophy dot com? Is that the best? Update regularly, he's got academic stuff and um popular articles and lots of videos and Complete archive of the media stuff I've done that I yeah, I try to keep up to date. I I spend too much time arguing on

2:08:53 Well, used to be X and then All the liberals have gone to Blue Sky and I I'm doing both. I I kind of worry about this. bit of a divided community, so I'm I'm arguing on both. And it's interesting the different r reactions you get on but yeah, I spend too much time Arguing on

2:09:09 That's been really useful actually for learning This thing You know, I think when when I first my book first came out and I was on sort of Joe Rogan and stuff and I I think he didn't know what the hell I was talking about. It was like my fault. I but part of what's helped me communicate with the general audience, I think, is arguing with Ordinary people on X and Blue Sky and yes, if you want to have an argument, I get it's getting bit I can't keep up with it these days, but have an argument with me there. If you want to I've g I have a sub stack I just started. I try and do you know

2:09:38 Something every month on a sub stack. If you want to pick a fight and have an argument with Philip, then I suppose X is the best gladiatorial arena for that. Oh w the books, Galileo's Era and Why They're uh Great read. And as far as the great place to argue goes, the dose makes the poison, folks. So just be careful with your dosing. Phil, this has been so fun.

2:10:00 Thank you for taking the time. To have such a wide ranging conversation. I really appreciate it. And take a bunch of notes for myself. I'll be revisiting the show notes when they're put together. And is there anything else you'd like to say or Point people to any formal complaints you'd like to lodge publicly. Anything at all you'd like to add before we wind to a close? No, that was just to say thank you. I I think you're right. It's it has been a wonderful

2:10:26 We had a good session on the panpsychism and and a good session on the religion stuff. And I've learned a lot actually. We talked about Sufism and lots of Yeah, I've got I wanna think lotta things I wanna follow up there that can be very useful for this book I've just started that hopefully I'll write if I can spend less time arguing on. Thanks. Philip on the scalk off.

2:10:47 Yeah. Ha Yeah, thanks so much. Let's stay in touch.

2:10:52 Absolutely. Yeah, thanks, Philip. And for everybody listening. As usual, we will have show notes with links to everything we discussed and probably more at Tim.blog slash podcast. And until next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others and also to yourself. Thanks for tuning in.

2:11:11 Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bold Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash.

2:12:15 Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. In the last handful of years I've become very interested in environmental toxins, avoiding microplastics, and many other commonly found. compounds all over the place. One place I looked is in the kitchen. Many people don't realize just how toxic their cookware is or can be.

2:12:38 A lot of non-stick pans, practically all of them, can release harmful forever chemicals. PFAS. In other words, spelled P F A S into your food, your home, and then ultimately. that ends up in your body. Teflon is a prime example of this. It is still the forever chemical that most companies are using. So our place reached out to me as a potential sponsor and the first thing I did was look at the reviews of their products and said, send me one, and that is the Titanium Always Pan Pro. And the claim is that it's the first non-stick pan with zero coating. So that means zero forever chemicals and durability that'll last forever. I was very skeptical. I was very busy. So I said, you know what? I want to test this thing quickly. It's supposed to be non-stick. It's supposed to be durable. I'm gonna test it with two things. I'm gonna test it with

2:13:27 scrampled eggs in the morning because eggs are always a disaster in anything that isn't non-stick with the toxic coating. And then I'm gonna test it with a steak sear because I want to see how much it retains heat. And It worked perfectly in both cases, and I was frankly astonished how well it worked. The Titanium Always Pan Pro has become my go-to pan in the kitchen. It replaces a lot of other things for searing, for eggs, for anything you can imagine. And the design is really clever. It does combine the best qualities of stainless steel, cast iron, and non stick into one product. And now our place is expanding this first of its kind technology to their Titanium Pro cookware sets, which are made in limited quantities. So if you're looking for non-toxic, long-lasting pot and pans that outperform everything else in your kitchen,

2:14:19 just head to from our place.com slash Tim. and use code TIM for 10% off of your order. You can enjoy a 100 day risk free trial, free shipping, and free returns. Check it out. From ourplace.com slash Tim. As many of you know, for the last few years I've been sleeping on a midnight luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. Kind of over the top, to be honest. I mean they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattresses and what do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite in a new guest bedroom, which I sometimes sleep in, and I pick it for its very soft but supportive feel to help with some lower back pain that I've had. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right support in the right spot. It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support, right where I need it.

2:15:21 and middle layers with premium foam and microcoils to create a soft contouring feel. Which also means if I feel like I want to sleep on my side, I can do that without worrying about other aches and pains that might create. And with a luxurious pillowtop for pressure relief. I look forward to nestling into that bed every night that I use it. The best part of course is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested with a back that feels supple instead of stiff. That is the name of the game for me these days. Helix offers a 100 night sleep trial. fast free shipping and a 15 year warranty. So check it all out. And you, my dear listeners, can get 20% off of all mattress orders, so go to helixsleep.com slash Tim. to learn more.

2:16:03 So Take a look. With Helix, Better Sleep starts now.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.