philosiphizethis-chunksToCreate.csv

group_tracking_ids|tracking_id|chunk_html|time_stamp|link|episode_number|episode_title
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-0|  Hello everyone! I’m Stephen West. This is Philosophize This. So I got a message a couple days ago from someone on Patreon. His name was Andrew. He was from Australia. Shout out to Australia, by the way. But he was responding to that question of what would you ask Zizek if you could ask him anything. And what he said was something to the effect of okay, Zizek. I get it. My worldview is ideology. I’m but a FEEBLE human mind… that NEEDS this ideology you’re talking about…to give me SHORTCUTS.Shortcuts that allow me to UNDERSTAND my reality…because NO human being has the mental resources to understand the FULL complexity of reality on it’s own terms. I get it. But isn’t it ALSO the case that whenever ANYONE out there does something GOOD for the society they’re in…HIS example was that he does things sometimes to reduce CLIMATE change…don’t people NEED the mental resources to be able to DO good things like that at all? I mean if we just sat around OBSESSING over the true COMPLEXITY of reality all day long…then we’d never get anything done. In other words: don’t people NEED ideology to be able to do ANYTHING?He |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-1|said if you look at someone who’s a Christian…maybe on ONE hand, depending on your perspective, you’ll SEE that as somebody that’s immersed in an ideology…but on the OTHER hand, look, they’re still FEEDING the HOMELESS on Sunday. REGARDLESS of ANY ideology ...they’re still doing good things. His question is: WHY should we SPEND the limited mental resources that we have… disassembling these ideological crutches…that we need?Well I think Zizek would see this as a bit of a black and white description of what the options are that we have as people. You don’t need to spend every second of your LIFE disassembling ideology in some ideology cult with pentagrams on the walls…there’s different levels of self awareness that are possible. And if you wanted to suggest NEVER looking at the ideological framework you’re using to make sense of the world, if you don’t pay attention to ANY of this…to Zizek there are very real CONSEQUENCES to that. For example, you could be DOING things that you TRULY THINK are supporting the climate change effort for example…when in reality the things you’re doing…accomplish almost the opposite. Because ideology to Zizek is not JUST…the specific set of things that you believe…and then the |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-2|identity that blossoms out of that. It’s not as simple as just I’m a new atheist…you’re a creationist. These are our ideologies and now let's go to battle with each other. Ideology is much BROADER than that. It’s more SUBVERSIVE. It’s not only in the way that you consciously THINK about the world…it’s in what you DON’T think about the world. It’s in what you do. It’s in the way information is distributed…it’s in the “secret agreements” that are made underneath your decisions for Zizek…the ideological structures…that make you FEEL like you SEE the world so SIMPLY and SO CLEARLY…but it GIVES you this feeling of CLARITY…ALWAYS by EXCLUDING OTHER ways of framing that SAME REALITY. Ideology, to Zizek, is the entire SYSTEM of symbols, tactics, and agreements…that accomplishes that task. So it’s not as simple as just New Atheism or Christianity…and while you may SEE people CALL themselves these terms, and part of how they GOT there is through COMMON ideological tactics you can point out…the fact is for Zizek if you wanted to understand IDEOLOGY and what it’s capable of doing….there are OTHER…STRUCTURES of ideology out there you can find that are even MORE effective at REINFORCING people’s worldview, feeding |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-3|into their DESIRES, EXCLUDING different ways of viewing things that KEEP people locked in.  By the end of the episode…we’ll understand WHY to Zizek, the DOMINANT ideology in the west of liberal democratic capitalism… has become so brutally efficient at MANAGING people’s thinking… that we are NOW at a point in history where capitalism… doesn’t even need something like democracy to be able to function anymore. And now we’re seeing the effects of it. The easiest place to SEE how ideology ACTUALLY works in the world is on the level of what’s commonly called SOCIAL relations…or how do the people, the institutions or the IDEAS within a society, connect together? Ideology DISTORTS the way people think about these everyday things. Which…at this point it should just be said: Zizek’s obviously NOT the first person to ever talk about ideology. Pretty notable moment for HIM though, in the history of this conversation… is going to be the way Karl Marx talked about ideology. See for Marx: one thing we HAVE to understand is that the DOMINANT ideology of ANY particular culture…is GOING to be DETERMINED by the ruling class…and that’s not a CONSPIRACY theory…he’s not saying there’s a bunch of old dudes drinking their |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-4|metamucil together, playing bingo, pulling the puppet strings of society at their big meetings that they have. It’s actually a common misconception about Marx as a philosopher: by saying… the ruling class put this in place…this isn’t a MORALISTIC claim he’s making like these are BAD PEOPLE…this is an analytical claim. Social structures EMERGE in a particular way as well as the world views of the people that are born into them. See at another level to SOME out there this is just common sense: who STRUCTURES a society? Well it’s the people that have the power and influence to be able to structure it in the FIRST place. And those people that STRUCTURE it… obviously do it in a way where the HOPE is that it all keeps working into the future, they don’t WANT society to FAIL. So the dominant ideology of any society for Marx is going to REFLECT the ideas of the people that had enough power and influence to set it up.And when you’re BORN into one of these societies, from the time you’re a baby you INTERNALIZE different ways of VIEWING what life IS in that society, or put broadly, SOCIAL relations. And this could |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-5|one of THOUSANDS of different questions you may HAVE about society and how the world works: What is a SCHOOL for example? What is the FUNCTION of a school? You send someone to school…what is it that you expect a school is SUPPOSED to be doing for that person? That’s a question there’s a DEFAULT answer to that you internalize, but is there more TO it than that?What is the GOVERNMENT in this system, same questions. When I go into a store and I BUY something…what is it that I’m doing there? Am I participating in free market capitalism and casting my vote for the product or service that provides VALUE to the consumer the best? Or is that a PIECE of it…and is there MORE to it than that? And that REAPEATING question: is there more TO it than that…that’s going to be a great question to keep asking yourself throughout your life about every ONE of your beliefs. How is the clarity of my worldview made possible by excluding other worldviews? Where does ideology… give people an EASY answer to complex questions… that allow them to live comfortably as a subject in whatever culture they’re in…and is it possible that a |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-6|broader understanding of these social relations exists…if you were to just consider OTHER ideological frameworks that interpret the SAME THINGS that are GOING ON in the world…through a slightly different filter. Remember our example of light from last episode. You can view the SAME empirical data as a particle, a wave or a wave particle duality, and it CHANGES what your view of light is: because the conceptual FRAMEWORK changes. To use the oversimplified example from LAST episode of the New Atheist vs the Creationist: a creationist may look out onto the horizon… and see a double rainbow and a little baby goat right next to it eating some clover on a hillside… and to THEM… that might mean this is GOD pointing me in the direction of my new pet goat, this is divine intervention, what are the odds here?And I realize very few creationists actually think this way but that’s kind of the POINT…you GET sufficiently OUTSIDE of the parameters of an ideology and you can see how someone has a bunch of secret agreements they’ve made that allow them to SEE the world so clearly…but again its to the exclusion of a lot of OTHER explanations. Let’s give |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-7|a real world example. Let’s give a JUICY one from Zizek himself. It’s about the SUPPOSED political LEFT in the United States vs the SUPPOSED political RIGHT in the United States. I say supposed because to Zizek the terms left and right are outdated terms to TALK about the political opposition going on these days… it just oversimplifies what the problems are and OBSCURES the true SOCIAL relations between people. Though he WILL still use left and right as a purely descriptive term sometimes, anyway:By the left and right in the United States he means that on the extreme LEFT, you have the type of people who are obsessed with plasticity, and identity, diversity, equity, inclusion…and on the extreme RIGHT… you have populist alt-right fascism. And to the people IMMERSED in any VERSION of these two extremes…they often SEE their political enemies, on the OTHER SIDE…and think these people that are SO FAR OFF when it comes to their worldview…I honestly don’t know if we agree on ANYTHING. This is an unbridgeable divide that exists between us…people talk about a civil war.But to Zizek…again, asking us to CONSIDER this SAME situation through a DIFFERENT ideological FILTER…to Zizek these two GROUPS are two |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-8|sides of the same coin. Because BOTH of them…are sitting around arguing about the DETAILS of how to MAINTAIN the society as it IS…without addressing the underlying global capitalist economic ETHOS… that CREATES all of the problems that they’re ARGUING about. There’s no REAL left leaning option for people to vote for…just two different FACTIONS of the capitalist party. It’s a tactic as old as time. Couple decades ago people were arguing about stem cells, marijuana legalization, abortion, cloning. You get people arguing about deeply philosophical social issues… that DON’T have a scientific answer to them yet and they’ll keep arguing about that stuff for the rest of their lives not QUESTIONING the bi-partisan CONSENSUS of global capitalism underneath. As HE says: people on the supposed left… WANT CAPITALISM…they just want it a LITTLE less racist. A LITTLE less sexist. A little less selfish overall. When THEY go out and they BUY things they want to buy from companies that give a little percentage back to nature. Or any millennial owned company you see on Shark Tank…it’s not ENOUGH these days to just have a company with a good product…every millennial and Gen Zer has to have a CAUSE they give back to |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-9|as well, they give SOCKS to the homeless. They give a percentage back to the environment, mental illness whatever it is.From THEIR ideological perspective BEING someone immersed in liberal, democratic capitalism…THEY’RE doing the lord’s work! They’re using what little mental resources they HAVE to contribute to the cause of CLIMATE change, why spend all day WORRYING about ideology?But from a DIFFERENT ideological framing…the one Zizek’s asking us to consider…you’re not FIGHTING against the PROBLEMS there…from THIS perspective: you are living in a society with a FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN economic approach that is producing the destruction of the environment, social inequality, commodity fetishism and mental illness among OTHER things…and what YOU are…is the person ON the SINKING SHIP, DUMPING buckets of WATER over the side to try to PROLONG the system as long as it can go on. The switch in accountability that goes ON here in the ideology of global capitalism, Zizek says, is sometimes TRULY genius. You have people participating in a society that’s policies produce literal MOUNTAINS of trash, ISLANDS the size of TEXAS sitting in the ocean…and everyday people reading about this stuff in the NEWS…start to blame THEMSELVES and other PEOPLE…not the system itself! Oh I really COULD |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-10|BE a better recycler…that’s a fair point. If all you out there would be better RECYCLERS and COMPOSTERS then maybe this broken way of doing things could CLING ON for dear life just a little bit longer. They BUY things from places like Starbucks, Zizek says, that dedicates a portion of their profits to Mother Earth. And they KNOW this cup of coffee in their hand costs MORE than other cups of coffee…and PART of the commodity fetishism MAGIC that gets INJECTED into that cup of coffee by ideology…is that the PRICE to DO something GOOD for the environment that we feel so bad about…is FACTORED IN…to the price of the cup of coffee. He says it should be on the receipt when you get it, 10% to mother earth, 5% to THAT cause and so on and so on. Now there’s plenty of time to talk about specific examples of this…real quick I want to get back to this REFRAMING he would want to do of the political divide in the US. The left and right to him are two sides of the same coin. They’re BOTH based on LIES… that ALLOW for the other side’s lie to continue. The LEFT with |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-11|political correctness and censorship… CLAIMS to be about protecting the exploited people of the world…but in REALITY political correctness to Zizek is a displaced class struggle, it is economic in nature, and it becomes an INSTRUMENT that is used by the left to prevent political dissent on the other side. And when you HAVE such a transparent LIE that it’s about PROTECTING the exploited when it obviously ISN’T…THIS LIE…allows for the lie on the RIGHT…that THEIR movement is about protecting the exploited, every day working americans… that are the LIFE blood of the country… that these pro-ESTABLISHMENT ELITES are HURTING with all their policies that don’t CONSIDER them… as the elites PRETEND to care about the exploited. But he says NEITHER side of this is TRULY helping the people who are being exploited in the world. One lie FEEDS into the other. Again to Zizek, there IS no true LEFTIST option that CHALLENGES global capitalism. And what HAPPENS for him is that things like human rights, democracy…these become things that in the modern world we PRACTICE…but that we don’t really believe in. They become something SIMILAR to a more PERFORMATIVE belief that parents and kids will have about Santa Claus. Neither |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-12|ONE of them BELIEVE in it at a certain point, but they don’t want to disappoint all the OTHER people INVOLVED in the social belief. They PRACTICE it…but do they REALLY believe in it?To be CLEAR here…Zizek is NOT saying that these conversations people are HAVING in the political sphere are not IMPORTANT conversations to be having. He is ABSOLUTELY supportive of ANY KIND of REAL progress in the realm of women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, the acknowledgement of the realities of working class Americans, these are IMPORTANT conversations he thinks. But I think he’d CAUTION about mistaking political MOVEMENT for political PROGRESS in these areas that have become HIGHLY co opted by global capitalism… without ALSO addressing what he sees as the CAUSE to many of these problems. And if you’re asking WHY would I EVER spend my time WORRYING about my ideological FRAMING of REALITY, being more self AWARE of it. Well again to Zizek…BOTH sides of this divide are FILLED with people that have GREAT intentions. But NOT being aware of ideology allows you to be CAPTURED by causes in ways that you don’t INTEND to be…he says what’s ALREADY HAPPENING on a GLOBAL scale…is that Russian NATIONALIST, |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-13|fascist ideology… starts to become aligned with people that hate wokism in the United States, because naturally the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And then what’s ALREADY going on he says in Uganda and in South Africa and parts of the middle EAST…is that Russian propaganda, VERY EFFECTIVELY, can start to align being a SUPPORTER of FEMINISM, Gay Rights and Trans rights…with a NEW KIND of Western Imperialism. The propaganda is this is the NEW american exceptionalism that’s being IMPOSED upon the rest of the world. If American exceptionalism DECADES AGO was this is OUR country, like it or leave it, we’re the best country in the WORLD. On the global stage Zizek warns…it’s already happening but MORE he predicts as we move into the future…that to be AGAINST COLONIALISM and NATO expansion…will be to BE against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Now to take a pause here and relate this back to the FIRST episode we did on Zizek. This is an example of Zizek doing what he does. This is a REFRAMING of the world through a DIFFERENT ideological lens that FORCES the people hearing it to consider the ideological structures they’re immersed in. And it is also PRIMARILY aimed |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-14|at the people who consider themselves to be on the LEFT…and again, that’s not because he’s a SUPPORTER of the right, it’s because his target AUDIENCE are the people that see ENOUGH of a PROBLEM with the status quo that they can be REACHED by conversation…the would be REVOLUTIONARIES ON the left that haven’t been fully shaken OUT of the common ideological lanes people fall into. But HOW would he say we GOT here? How did liberal democratic capitalism become the hegemonic order of the western world that we NEVER seriously question…where then what POLITICS becomes AFTER that is just finding ways to maintain that system with all the problems it creates?Well to Zizek…an absolutely CRUCIAL moment in history if you wanted to understand what’s going on with the western world today…is in the year 1992…when a political scientist named Francis Fukuyama came out with what was an EXTREMELY important book at the time… called The End of History and the Last Man. The way Zizek would describe this book…is that Fukuyama took an oversimplification of Hegel, his concept of “absolute knowledge”, the dialectical change of Hegel and applied it to the political climate of the early 1990’s. See in 1991 the world |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-15|saw the fall of the Soviet Union. And Fukuyama in 92 made the claim that if you look at the history of human ideas…for a LONG time we’ve been in this BATTLE that’s been going on… between DIFFERENT ideologies that say what the best way is to organize people in a society…we SEE this throughout history… ideologies will RISE and then they will fall, each progressive system will get a LITTLE bit better than the last one…this starts to look like his INTERPRETATION of what HEGEL was saying that there will BE this slow historical progression until ONE day we reach a sort of CULMINATION of that PROCESS and arrive at the ULTIMATE  form of political organization that realizes human freedom. The END to HISTORY, Absolute Knowledge…I mean if you BELIEVED that this progression in human thought was going on…is it SO CRAZY to THINK that we’ve LEARNED so many LESSONS about how to politically organize people that we’ve come up with the BEST general system there is for accomplishing that? Well again in 91 the soviet union falls and in 92 Fukuyama says that MAYBE WE’VE ARRIVED at that ultimate system, and that SYSTEM is Liberal Democratic Capitalism or the |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-16|combination of classical liberalism, democracy and capitalism. And CONSIDER how all THREE of these things work so WELL together and how their WISDOM ADJUSTS to the specific world they’re in! Capitalism is based on free markets, and ultimately the CHOICES of the people making UP those markets. Democracy, similar sort of thing, it’s based on the will of the people. And classical liberalism with it’s multiculturalism, and tolerance, and free and open discussion letting the best ideas rise to the top…think of how OPEN ENDED all this is! This three pronged approach…could be the ULTIMATE SYSTEM we’ve been WAITING for. And as Zizek says: at the time a LOT of progressive thinkers in the western world agreed with this optimism. He says for about a decade 99% of leftists were Fukuyama leftists. The THINKING was look… obviously we’re STILL gonna have PROBLEMS to deal with in the world. Liberal democratic capitalism isn’t a PANACEA. There’s of course inequality there’s the environment there’s women’s rights…but here’s what we’re optimistic about: the MOST LIKELY WAY ALL THESE THINGS are gonna get BETTER…is from within a liberal, democratic, capitalist society. And this is when the seeds were planted for politics in the United States being a |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-17|matter of maintaining the economic and political order of things, not questioning their legitimacy. Zizek says people thought back in the 90’s it’s just a MATTER OF TIME before the WISDOM of this political setup SPREADS across the globe like a virus and EVERYBODY realizes how great of a system it is. He said they THOUGHT we were living in a POST-ideological age. But he says if there’s ANYTHING those Fukuyama leftists learned on September 11th, 2001…it was that they HADN’T arrived at some sort of ultimate political system where everyone was going to accept western progressive thought… because the wisdom of it would just be self-evident to them. What you saw was an example of a modern historical trend we’ve seen over and over again to Zizek where western progressive values get IMPOSED upon people that don’t want them or have their OWN problems to deal with…and then you see a reactionary, fundamentalist BACKLASH as a response. And then a western LIBERAL response to THAT. And then a fundamentalist response to THAT. This revolving door of western liberalism and fundamentalism both FUELING the reactions from each other. What you saw on September 11th for Zizek…is the unpredictability of history, the TRUE dialectic |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-18|of Hegel…that BY THE WAY Hegel would’ve TOLD you about if you had just interpreted his WORK a little differently. What Zizek thinks Hegel was really saying. To understand how Zizek sees history and progress…is CRUCIAL for understanding the rest of the way he SEES the world and the STATE of liberal democratic capitalism today. But to DO that we’re going to need to take a deeper look at Dialectics than we’ve ever gone INTO on this podcast before.And I guess it should just be said: that there’s a pretty common intro to dialectics that you’ll see on introductions to the thought of Hegel that revolves around this idea of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. That there’s a pendulum of social progress where there’s ONE way of looking at things, the thesis, an opposition of an idea comes along and critiques that initial idea, pendulum swings in the other direction that’s the antithesis, and then the contradictions of both sides are resolved and they take the new form of a synthesis between the two, which then becomes the new thesis and this whole process continues… UNTIL… we reach a form of absolute knowledge that lies at the end of this long process, a |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-19|sort of culmination. But to Zizek and dare I say most people out there that take Hegel seriously…this is a massive oversimplification. It’s useful if you’re just introducing the ideas, but…well for one thing Hegel himself never USED the terms thesis antithesis synthesis. And he never described this as being some macro level process where political ideologies battle against each other and get better over time. Dialectics is a way of viewing EVERYTHING about reality… that, yes, started with Hegel…but it was taken up later by Marx and applied in a different way across the material conditions of reality…it’s been taken up by a LOT of thinkers over the years because of the STRENGTH of looking at reality in a dialectical way: it reveals some IMPORTANT TRUTHS about how things actually operate in the world. Now I warn you it can get kind of complex. And there’s no way I can cover over 100 years of work that’s been DONE in dialectics in a segment of a podcast like this. Honestly someone could an entire PODCAST ONLY talking about dialectics. But I think I can give you at least a glimpse of the way Zizek is looking at institutions and people in the |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-20|modern world…by going a bit deeper than we’ve gone on this podcast before. The first thing that needs to be said about this different way of viewing reality… is that we need to ACCEPT the fact that everything is moving and changing, all the time. STOP thinking about reality as though its a bunch of static things out there that we need to go and STUDY. You know, look at them REALLY hard under a microscope ONCE… and then we know everything ABOUT them. The WORLD as we know it is CONSTANTLY in a state of change.This is important. This is something we talked about on the episodes we did about PROCESS philosophy. Remember the example of a sand dune…PICTURE a sand dune on a really windy day where the sands being blown around everywhere. How do you get an understanding of what that sand dune is? There’s a sense in which EVEN if you went and MEASURED where EVERY piece of sand is at a precise moment in time…by the time you got done making the MEASUREMENT… it would’ve transformed into something slightly different. In other words: ABOVE AND BEYOND understanding just the MATERIAL components of something…there’s a process of CHANGE |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-21|that it’s important to understand as well if you want to know about reality.Well let’s take an initial example…let’s take something PRACTICAL from the realm of SOCIAL relations, how about one of the examples we gave before. What is a school? There’s one way of approaching reality…where understanding what a SCHOOL is seems like a pretty easy thing to do. You could have an answer to that question already queued up…a school is where people go to be educated. And to be educated means they teach you HOW to think, not WHAT to think. And ultimately…I think a school should be teaching you information that’s USEFUL to you when you get OUT of that school and start working or having a family…what’s the POINT of a school otherwise someone could say?But there’s ANOTHER way of looking at reality…where that SCHOOL is something that is CONSTANTLY changing…and in TERMS of what it is on a particular DAY…that school is ALWAYS under the influence of both INTERNAL tensions… from teachers, parents, students, administrators, ALL these people have an effect on what that school is…and EXTERNAL factors, like how this SCHOOL as an institution… is POSITIONED…in the larger SOCIETY that it’s a PART of. What |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-22|is the CULTURE like? What is the POLITICAL situation in that society? What’re the ECONOMIC conditions? What does BEING EDUCATED MEAN from within those parameters? SOCIAL RELATIONS: How does the institution of a school…relate to the institution of government? How do schools relate to companies? How do schools relate to churches or their local community? How does it relate to HISTORY? There are THOUSANDS of different CONTACT points that determine what a school is…and everyone of those CONTACT points are constantly changing as well. And at THIS moment in the conversation someone can HEAR all this and say okay…YES I have a definition of what a school is PRAGMATICALLY…but OBVIOUSLY I realize… at ANOTHER level the world is always CHANGING like this. That’s why what I try to do…is I try to channel my inner Socrates…I try to think about the NATURE of something as it’s supposed to be…that way even if these little details about the thing change over time…I still KNOW what something is supposed to be like in a more TIMELESS sort of way.Well ABOUT that: consider another example of the government and IT’S role in a society. Conservative person today could have a ready made answer…what’s the government’s |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-23|JOB? Its the government’s job to protect the borders and get out of my way economically speaking so that I can exercise my freedom. That’s a timeless answer they could say…it doesn’t CHANGE across generations. But while the WORDS you use to DESCRIBE it might not change…consider the fact that the actual SHAPE of the government DOES. If the government’s job is to preserve the economy for example…then the specific economic and political situation that it’s trying to PRESERVE… has a BIG IMPACT on what that government actually is. Picture the difference between what a government is…where it’s job is to preserve the economic order of the Feudal system in Medieval Europe…and how DIFFERENT that is from what a government needs to be in order to preserve a modern, CAPITALIST system. Or the Chinese COMMUNIST government. The instruments that the government uses to ACCOMPLISH that task, the size and SCOPE of government, the way it relates to the people. There’s a sense in which for a certain kind of thinker that is looking at the complexity of reality and is trying to understand it…if you wanted to try to understand WHAT the government is as ONE thing to understand…and what COMPANIES ARE as ANOTHER |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-24|thing to understand and what a SCHOOL is over here…there’s a sense in which if you try to DO that…you’re setting yourself up for oversimplifying things. The reality is that companies and the government are ALWAYS intertwined…to try to understand them as separate entities MISSES a big part of what they are and how they work. And this extends BEYOND companies and the government to ALL different social institutions: you have to try to understand them more HOLISTICALLY. Okay. Now we’re starting to get a little CLOSER to the way Zizek analyzes social institutions. Let’s take this another level deeper though: if it is the government’s JOB…to enforce the LAW for example…that’s another thing that seems uncontroversial to say. Consider the fact that the LAW is something that is always changing and evolving as well. And here’s a VERY important PIECE of this dialectical PICTURE of reality: our understanding of what something IS…is ALWAYS in terms of dialectical OPPOSITIONS and how they relate to each other. Put a different way: our understanding of what something is is always INTRINSICALLY tied together with the thing that it is not. You CANNOT have an understanding of something without making REFERENCE to it’s dialectical opposite. |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-25|OBVIOUSLY we need an example here to clear this up: let’s use the example of the LAW that the government’s supposed to be enforcing for us.And the law is a COMMON example used here to explain this concept, this ISN’T mine. You CAN’T have an understanding of what the LAW is…without ALSO having an understanding of what a TRANSGRESSION is. The LAWS we put in place that people need to ABIDE by are DIRECTLY CONNECTED to the BEHAVIORS that we see as transgressions. You USED to be able to beat your kids and it was legal. Society changed…now it’s more FROWNED upon to beat your children and we have a LAW against it. Similarly with things that USED to be illegal, for example, witchcraft. Few hundred years ago…that was a serious problem. You could be burned at the stake…but in today’s society to the average person  if you’re a witch…you’re MOSTLY…just a weirdo. But a lovable weirdo, that’s the thing you never meet any WICKED witches in today’s world they’re all pretty nice. Point is: COMPLICATED factors, social, political, economic, individual psychology…ALL this goes IN to what MAKES any one thing a transgression or not…and as our understanding of what a transgression |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-26|is evolves so does our understanding of the LAW and our understanding of the LAW feeds into our understanding of what a transgression is. The way to PUT this in Dialectical terms: is that the evolution or development of ANY THING, like the Law…REQUIRES it’s negation. Its dialectical opposite or its dialectical contradiction. Every THING carries WITHIN it… its own contradiction. As well as every POSITION. As well as every SOCIAL institution. Consider the example from LAST episode of a New Atheist. Again from one, SIMPLE way of looking at reality you can ask WHAT is a New Atheist? Oh, well that’s just someone that doesn’t believe in a God. And is that even a way to DESCRIBE a person? I also don’t believe in UNICORNS…do I need a special NAME you give me for THAT lack of belief? But to SAY that makes it START to seem like there’s a lack of self-AWARENESS there…because there IS a sense where a New Atheist is DEFINED by their cultural NEGATION or dialectical opposite. Consider another culture living on an alien planet somewhere…and on this planet they HAVE the concept of a God…but NOBODY in the HISTORY of that planet has EVER attributed to that |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-27|God some sort of moral plan that it has for people to follow. The God on this planet is SIMPLY a CREATIVE, metaphysical BLOB that BROUGHT things into existence. Well if somebody called themselves an ATHEIST on that PLANET…they’d be NEGATING something TOTALLY DIFFERENT than what a NEW ATHEIST is negating on OUR planet. The FACT IS: something VERY IMPORTANT to a New Atheist… is that they don’t want IRON AGE superstition smuggled into political structures and crammed into children’s heads in schools where all the people that DON’T believe in it just have to sit back and be held hostage. Our understanding of the GOD of the Abrahamic religions is ironically a BIG PART OF BEING what a new Atheist is. To put it as a metaphor: when it comes to something like the LAW…it is the NEGATION, TRANSGRESSION in our example…that is the ENGINE that DRIVES our understanding of the law forward. If you don’t CONSIDER its negation, then our understanding of the LAW is going to more or less stay the same. And now to take dialectics yet ANOTHER… level deeper as a way of understanding reality: NOW it’s important for us to consider that something like the law…doesn’t just |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-28|have ONE dialectical opposite. That’s right EVEN if we consider all the complexity up until this point. Even if we consider that things in the world are in a CONSTANT state of change…and that they’re ALWAYS being affected by internal and external tensions and how its INTERTWINED ALWAYS within a larger system, and even if we consider that our UNDERSTANDINGS of things rely on an ever-changing relationship between the thing AND its contradiction…it’s NOT AS SIMPLE as just well if we have an understanding of what a transgression is and THAT evolves then our understanding of the LAW will evolve as WELL!No depending on the context and the perspective that you VIEW the law from…it will change what the opposition is: Law vs transgression may be the PRIMARY opposition. But how about Law vs Freedom? Law vs Justice? Law vs Anarchy? Law vs Tradition? MANY MORE obviously depending on the context you’re examining it in.And now CONSIDER just how MANY of these dynamic, ever-changing tensions and negotiations are going ON in a GIVEN society ALL THE TIME. Freedom vs Oppression. As our understanding of what is oppressive evolves… so does our understanding of freedom. Freedom vs Security in the tech realm. |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-29|Individual vs Society. Technology vs Nature. Globalization vs Nationalism. And how about the fact that dialectics goes far deeper than even THIS. That things aren’t CHANGING at the same rate all the time obviously…and that you gotta pay attention to how quickly or slowly these interactions are changing things…and what if I told you that when I look at you…I’m disappointed quite frankly. You out there listening to this have a very SIMPLE WAY of viewing reality. You’re just not TRYING hard enough…what you gotta do is you gotta start looking at EVERY RELATIONSHIP between things in this ever changing dialectical way, you gotta take some time off of work, you gotta spend your vacations every year RESEARCHING these relationships, and if I told you that…you’d probably be like no. No thank you. I’m not gonna SPEND every SECOND of my life examining the world dialectically. I guess I’m a bad person. And you FEEL that feeling inside your stomach of how DAUNTING actually doing that would BE? THAT feeling…is why ideology is so effective. Again what ideology GIVES you is a set of SHORTCUTS…where you DON’T need to consider the true COMPLEXITY of all these moving parts…it often gives you a |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-30|purely POSITIVE worldview, which means it DOESN’T consider the NEGATIONS that drive your understanding, and in the sense that NEGATIONS are the ENGINE that MOVES our understanding of things forward…it allows you to just sit comfortably, as a subject, in that purely POSITIVE place, maintaining the EXISTING social order. And that’s the point. Things don’t CHANGE without their negation. And if you FOUND yourself EXISTING in a society where there was NO TRUE OPPOSITION to an underlying ORDER of things powered by liberal democratic capitalism…if the political landscape was made up of a bunch of people arguing about how to MAINTAIN the existing system…how MANY police and national guards do we need to round up the mentally ill and homeless on the streets, not what CAUSES homelessness and mental illness. How do we get kids to STOP going on Tiktok and social media, not what system COMMODIFIES their attention and psychological development. Again if there WAS no opposition then the public UNDERSTANDING of these systems wouldn’t develop. But…in a dialectical way…liberal democratic capitalism would ALWAYS be changing and adapting. And constantly changing shape based on it’s relationship to everything else going on around it. Again to the point that today to Zizek: CAPITALISM…doesn’t |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-31|even NEED DEMOCRACY anymore to be the arbiter of people’s THINKING. Capitalism may not even need the GOVERNMENT at some point…people are already talking about versions of techno feudalism…which we could certainly do an episode on if it was something people out there were requesting.  Real quickly…there’s another concept in dialectics of Quantitative vs Qualitative CHANGES in a system… OVER a long enough period of time. The idea is: You watch something change long enough…thatthere’s a very good possibility that things change in a QUANTITATIVE way enough… that the thing turns into something that looks VERY different qualitatively.Common example that’s given is to think about a SEED and how if you watched it grow over TIME…eventually enough of these small changes have added up over time that it transforms into something completely different…like a full grown plant that looks ENTIRELY different, BEHAVES differently, gets sustenance differently, and now produces it’s OWN seeds and spreads itself around. Applying this to the example we gave of the law…there’s no guarantee that something like Hammurabi’s code in the city of Babylon looks anything REMOTELY like, or even AIMS for the same things as the modern legal system in the western world. You have to pay |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-32|attention to the structural transformations that have gone on over time and DIALECTICS is the way to DO this. This same idea even applies when it comes to the things changing AROUND a particular thing. Another example that’s used when talking about this is to think of water. On one hand water is always h2o…two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. But depending on certain conditions SURROUNDING those atoms, temperature, pressure, the specific configuration of the molecules… QUANTITATIVE changes like that will change it QUALITATIVELY from a liquid, solid or gas. This is another example of dialectics considering ALL of the FACTORS involved in determining what something is in any given moment. But to bring this conversation BACK to where we started with all this: to Zizek…Fukuyama was wrong. There IS no CULMINATION into an ultimate political ideology. There is no end to history in that sense. In fact to Zizek…what Hegel MEANT by ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE…was the opposite: to accept that there CAN BE NO, totalizing, FINAL form of knowledge or political system. That IS what absolute knowledge is: is EMBRACING the dialectical process as never ending. We will ALWAYS be in a place where the facts and our understanding of reality |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-33|are in a state of negotiation and tension. The TRUTH in other words…is in the process to Zizek. Though what’s ALSO true to Zizek…is that we NEED IDEOLOGY to be able to function. We NEED ideology… EVEN after being made AWARE that it is ideology. Because this is what Zizek will sometimes call the FETISH version of ideology, a common way we’re starting to see people USE it these days he says, where ideology becomes something similar to a psychological COPING mechanism. See ideology has EVOLVED into something to Zizek…where like we talked about at the beginning it’s NOT JUST the things you believe, NOT JUST what you exclude…and it’s NOT JUST the things you believe that you DON’T know that you believe like some OTHER commentators have suggested. Ideology to Zizek has become something where you believe it…you’re TOLD about it…you KNOW that it’s ideology…and yet you STILL behave in a way as though you DON’T KNOW that it’s ideology. Ideology becomes something you use to DISTANCE yourself from the reality of the world around you. The PAIN you would otherwise feel.He tells a story sometimes of a friend of his…that a few years ago had a wife who tragically got cancer, |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4-34|fell ill and died. And on the other SIDE of this…this FRIEND of his… it was a shock to a lot of the people in his immediate circles…because the guy seemed to be handling it all pretty easily…he seemed fine…he’d be taking care of the hamster that his wife and him used to have as a pet before she died.But then as Zizek says about six months later that HAMSTER died…and ONLY THEN… did the guy have a major psychological breakdown. The question Zizek has for people that USE ideology in this way is what is YOUR hamster? What is the thing that ALLOWS you to DISTANCE yourself from reality? If Tiktok and Netflix and Alcohol and Gambling and extravagant food and video games if EVERYTHING like that ceased to exist TOMORROW…would people suddenly care more about the reality around them? Would you have different political candidates? It’s not a rhetorical question or whoa GOTCHA there’s an obvious answer…it’s genuine how much do you think would change? As we get into the more PSYCHOLOGICAL side to Zizek NEXT episode…we’ll talk about it more. Hope you enjoyed this one. As always thanks for sharing what you love. Thank you for listening. |2024-03-25T14:13:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-y6cd4|198|Episode #198 - The truth is in the process. Zizek Pt. 3 (Ideology, Dialectics)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-0|   Hello everyone. I’m Stephen West. This is Philosophize This! So what’s an EXAMPLE of one of these ideologies we were talking about through Zizek last episode? What’s an example of an ideology where the people immersed in it… see themselves as seekers of the TRUTH…that WE’RE the intellectually HONEST ones…and that our OPPOSITE, the OTHER…THESE are the people that are truly lost in an ideology that they don’t see. What’s an example of that?Well there’s DOZENS we could USE here to get this point across…but given that this is a philosophy show…I really want to USE this opportunity to give a NON-TRIVIAL example of an ideology that’s LIKELY to BE one that the people listening to this can relate to… whether that’s because it’s a position you USED to hold, that you CURRENTLY hold, whether you just SEE it in people around you…what I mean is I want to give an EXAMPLE of an ideology… that isn’t OBVIOUSLY an ideology. Because to Zizek the most POWERFUL FORM of an ideology is one that operates in the background, where the contradictions at the bottom of it… are things that the people using it, don’t even NOTICE… despite the fact they’ve |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-1|formed BIG PARTS of their worldview around them. This episode…will HOPEFULLY be a nice VISUAL example of two, competing ideologies in today’s world…hopefully this can be an example where you can practice DETECTING the ideology I’m bringing IN… AS I’m steelmanning all sides of this, as we do on this show. But anyway if you’re Zizek…it could be SAID that SOME modern philosophers, like Phillip Goff, are trying to find a way to preserve the best parts of BOTH of these approaches, and find a way to MOVE these conversations forward in a productive way.  And on THAT note…we ALSO promised to TALK about the new book from the philosopher Phillip Goff on this episode…and we will. We’ll USE it in this investigation of different ideologies. But I guess it’s important to say: that in that BOOK that we’re gonna talk about a little LATER…Phillip Goff is building off of the work of a philosopher named Thomas Nagel. Thomas Nagel wrote a book in 2012 called mind and cosmos…and when he WROTE that book mind and cosmos…he was responding to an ideology that he thought was EXPLODING in popularity at that time… it’s an ideology popular among the fans of the new Atheist |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-2|movement that was going on and it’s a position… that he thought was ALSO an overall ATTITUDE that’s taken HOLD of academia more generally…what he’s FIGHTING against…is what is OFTEN been referred to as material reductionism. Or the IDEA…that the TRUTH about ANYTHING that’s worth KNOWING about the universe…can and SHOULD be understood… by studying the MATERIALS that things are made out of… and the fundamental FORCES that govern them. THAT is where the truth lies. You wanna know anything about the universe? DON’T sit around speculating about what the PURPOSES or the MEANINGS of things are like we’ve done in the past…we gotta stay focused…we gotta break things down into their component parts…study them EMPIRICALLY…THAT’S the where you gotta look if you want to get to the truth about the sum total or the WHOLE of those component parts. The truth of the universe can be arrived at through a purely MATERIAL explanation.Now somebody can hear that and think…what’s so WRONG with that? How is that an ideology? I mean to be real that just sounds like someone who’s a fan of science. But again TAKE the negative connotation OFF of the word ideology for a second when we’re trying to see |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-3|the world through the eyes of Zizek. Like we talked about last time…INSTEAD of seeing ideology as a BAD thing, try to see it as a deeply embedded network of tactics and symbols that are used by people to simplify reality into something coherent, where it's a process that literally EVERYBODY is engaging in no matter WHO you are.Again the point to Zizek is not to HATE on people for having an ideology…the point is to EXAMINE ours…to have more self awareness ABOUT the ideologies we’re using, how they operate, how exactly they work their way into people’s heads.And since we’re COMING at this FROM a place of zero hate…a very HUMANIZING activity I think when it comes to trying to understand ANY ideology people have…is to try to put yourself in their SHOES…try understand why it MAKES TOTAL SENSE… that someone would internalize a PARTICULAR ideology…GIVEN the specific culture they live in.For example: take a pretty common one, we ALL know some who fits this profile, imagine somebody that’s born at the end of the 20th century, 1970’s onward…and imagine this is a type of person that’s an atheist, they are a very RATIONAL kind of person, they are |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-4|a FAN of science…and BECAUSE of these three things… when it comes to what they’re gonna believe in about the TRUTH of the universe… they generally lean in a positivist direction which is to say that I’ll BELIEVE in something…AS LONG as it’s something that science can PROVE to me. If science can PROVE it, I’ll believe it…if it can’t…then no offense, but when we start getting into THAT kind of territory, as a fan of science at a certain point I don’t even know what we’re TALKING about. Beyond a CERTAIN point…with no evidence, you can say ANYTHING…and its all just unverifiable speculation… if we can’t empirically PROVE it. Imagine what it’s like to be this person. You’re BORN into the world…you look around you, end of the 20th century…and SCIENCE is the WAY that we are making sense of all the mysteries of the universe. I mean when it comes to OTHER explanations for how the universe might be the way that it is… they can HEAR about religion…they can hear about the miracles of the bible… of some guy walking on water, levitating, shaking hands with the lepers, rubbing jesus lotion all over the back, making em all moisturized…they can |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-5|HEAR about 2000 years ago and some miracles that may or may have not have happened. But…being BORN when they were…they can ALSO just LOOK AROUND them…and SEE the miracles of science. In the world THEY live in when it comes to science and technology…look, they’re sequencing the genome right now. This podcast is being delivered to you by invisible waves flying through the sky…I mean this stuff to people just a couple generations ago would’ve seemed borderline MAGICAL. Just saying: it’s understandable why it’s something to BELIEVE in. And then you got all the great COMMUNICATORS of this way of making sense of things the Carl Sagan’s, the Richard Dawkins’, ALL the horsemen of the atheist apocalypse, the neil tysons. And then imagine AS this person gets a little older… maybe they were BORN into a religious home, maybe they were just forced to go to church a couple times and they HEAR this message every Sunday being DELIVERED to them of fundamental GUILT and redemption through this invisible man sitting up in the sky…and they say LOOK, this thing, religion, doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth… CLEARLY this is a story that’s designed in some ways to just control people, |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-6|and it’s led to crusades and it’s led to religious violence and its just not a good look for me as a thinking person. They decide I’m gonna set the bar HIGHER for myself when it comes to WHY I believe what I believe and these creationists…THESE are the people out there that are believing in stories. Okay, I’M NOT. I’m only proportioning my belief to the empirical evidence that’s in front of me. I’m a TRUTH seeker. Not an ideologue. I mean honestly, what could be WRONG with the position that I’m not gonna believe in something unless if there’s EVIDENCE to prove that it exists? How can you ever go WRONG with that?And BECAUSE of this COMMITMENT to MATERIAL explanations for things…there’s PREDICTABLE, COMMON lanes that this type of person will fall INTO when it comes to their views about things that are NON-MATERIAL. For example: consciousness. We don’t know EXACTLY how our subjective experience of phenomenal consciousness emerges out of the brain, or if it even DOES. It’s a mystery we still gotta solve. Kind of exciting. But this person might say, understandably given the culture they’re in: look I’m a materialist. Yeah it’s a mystery…how does something that |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-7|seems totally NON-MATERIAL come out of something entirely MATERIAL. But look I’ve SEEN science solve PLENTY of OTHER mysteries BEFORE in my day. Any MYSTERY that may still BE there with consciousness is JUST because we haven’t had enough time to study how the brain works long enough, or we don’t have the technology yet. And while I don’t know for SURE…look have a little faith in science… just give us a few more years and is it CRAZY to think science will eventually solve that mystery too? ANOTHER common lane this person will fall into is hard determinism. IF ultimately you think that everything can be understood by having a deeper and deeper understanding of the ATOMS that make everything up…then what may SEEM to someone like it’s just reality, you know, that you’re making free choices every day…THAT’S actually an ILLUSION…that’s gonna be explained by science one day as well, just again give us some more time, this stuff isn’t done overnight. See again this PERSON might say…I’m a TRUTH seeker. Like a REAL truth seeker. BECAUSE I VALUE…ONLY the TRUTH that science can DIRECTLY VERIFY to me 1:1 about the world… and because I don’t waste my TIME on ANY |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-8|unverifiable speculation that’s outside of that…being a hard determinist, a materialist…these may SEEM counterintuitive when it comes to SOME explanations about our direct experience of the world…but to ME these are just the kind of positions that naturally BLOSSOM OUT of this intellectual HONESTY I have. When you ACTUALLY seek the truth…you sometimes gotta TAKE counter-intuitive positions like these.  See I’m not like one of those CREATIONISTS out there that are a bunch of ideologues. EASY to spot the contradictions in the way THOSE morons look at the world…LOOK at them CHERRY PICK their scientific data. They’re SHAMELESS about it. They’ll say look at all the EVIDENCE for God’s existence…WHEN they can BEND the science to FIT their narrative…but the SECOND the science DOESN’T fit the narrative…they conveniently IGNORE it. That’s a contradiction! They even do this in their PERSONAL lives, Sam Harris gives an example: they’ll say oh look at God isn’t he WONDERFUL for making sure my mom got the bank loan for her house RIGHT when we thought all hope was lost…they’ll say GOD IS GREAT. But then when a natural disaster takes out 10,000 people in a matter of minutes they will say God is mysterious. How can |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-9|a creationist NOT see the contradictions grounding their entire worldview?Now from the perspective of Slavoj Zizek LISTENING to this take on a creationist ideology…there’s a sense in which…this person in their critique…IS RIGHT. He would say there ARE contradictions at the CORE of a creationist ideology. And like we talked about last episode those contradictions are the fingerprints of them USING ideology to try to make sense of the complexity of the universe. And yes, the creationist would probably DO WELL he thinks to pay attention to the STRUCTURES of the ideology they’re immersed in. But here’s the thing: SO WOULD that fan of science that’s doing the critiquing. He’d say this common, materialist style of ideology…is not HARNESSING the TRUTH without USING contradictions…it just FEELS like they are to THEM… because they lack a level of self AWARENESS ABOUT the ideology that mediates their thinking. For example… WHAT could he POSSIBLY be talking about here?Well as it’s been pointed out in the history of philosophy…in ORDER to even GET to that place… where you say I’m ONLY gonna believe in something if it’s empirically verifiable…in order to DO that you have to smuggle in philosophical assumptions at the BOTTOM…that are THEMSELVES…not |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-10|empirically verifiable. For example: that the universe is something that is rationally coherent, to the point that human rationality can be used to study and understand it. That’s a philosophical assumption, not something PROVEN by a science experiment. Or how about the one from Hume, the problem of induction…that you have to assume there’s a CONTINUITY to existence where someone can study INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLES of things using science, and then derive GENERAL conclusions from them. Again ANOTHER philosophical assumption. Or how about the principles of causality you need to assume to conduct science, the existence of universal laws. NONE of these are empirically verifiable. There’s a sense in which if you TOLD a material reductionist that there may be a rational ORDERING to things, a teleology, a GOAL DIRECTED NATURE to the universe that aims towards rationality…they would tell you, I’m sorry, but that is unverifiable speculation. We can’t PROVE it. It’s DANGEROUS to speculate. But again to Zizek and to Quine and so many other philosophers who have looked at this problem…verifiability, SCIENCE…is ALWAYS value-laden. No matter HOW much it SEEMS like it… you are NOT starting from zero and receiving a 1:1 depiction of reality. See because on another level: the |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-11|CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS we USE to make SENSE of scientific data…MATTER. You want PROOF of this just consider the fact that the SAME empirical data can be looked at through DIFFERENT conceptual frameworks… and it CHANGES what your view of reality is. Take light as an example. At one point in the history of science we thought that light was a collection of photons, and that photons are particles…corpuscles as they used to call them. Little later on it was believed that light was in fact a wave INSTEAD of a particle. CHANGED the whole way we thought about what light is. Little later than THAT…as a quantum physicist in today’s world…depending on what kind of operations you want to do…you would view light as either a particle OR as a wave…and thinking of light as some sort of wave/particle duality…is probably the best description we got right now. Now this is just ONE example of MANY from the history of science…but it illustrates how science… is far from this totally neutral, valueless enterprise…the conceptual frameworks, the philosophical assumptions, the ideology that we FILTER the data through…HAS to be something that were self aware of. And there’s a type of person who romanticizes |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-12|science, funny enough usually people who are NOT scientists, who position themselves as the opposite to this ideology of creationism, and they view THEMSELVES as TRUTH SEEKERS while living in ignorance to the contradictions that ground the ideology THEY’RE immersed in. Now here’s the thing: does this mean that every ideology is EQUALLY valid? No. Does this MEAN we throw out science? NO. Does it mean we all should buy stock in Jesus lotion? No. Am I interviewing myself right now? Well, yes I am. Does this MEAN that we’ve FOUND CONTRADICTIONS at the BOTTOM of this one and now the whole THING, everything about it was FALSE and now it all goes up in smoke? NO. And again GET RID of this idea that you’re EVER gonna have a worldview that DOESN’T have contradictions at the bottom of it. This is not a reason to throw everything out. This is just a greater level of self awareness about the game we’re actually playing, to Slavoj Zizek. It’s actually very FREEING once you get past the initial feelings of discomfort…there’s this initial stage where you try to use ideology to find all the ways you’re NOT actually in contradiction. To Zizek, we |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-13|HAVE to be in contradiction at some level.That said, it also helps to understand the philosophical ORIGINS of this type of thinking. And this is where Thomas Nagel and his book Mind and Cosmos can help us. HE would start by saying that if we just go back far enough…back during the time of Aristotle for example…assuming the teleologies of things, or the GOALS or the PURPOSES of things… was not a controversial position to take at the time. People would look at the eyes or the TEETH of an animal for example…and they would look at how something like the eye… with all of its intricate PARTS, in OUR scientific language we’d say you have the retina and the cornea and the optic nerves…and these people would look at ALL the parts of the eye working together in unison and they would see the eye… as something that OBVIOUSLY has a clear purpose for a creature…its OBVIOUSLY part of a larger SYSTEM where these things allow the creature to SEE and navigate its environment. And if you were LIVING at that time…and you wanted to DOUBT that there was SOME SORT of teleology, or GOAL INTRINSIC to these sorts of things, |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-14|if you wanted to doubt that, much like the atheist makes fun of the religious person in today’s world… people back then might be like…look go ahead and doubt, but at a certain point I don’t even know what it is we’re talking about. CLEARLY there is a PURPOSE at work here… and that purpose may extend to the overall creatures themselves, that purpose may extend into human life, it’s not CRAZY to think this may extend to the way we structure our SOCIETIES. What is the PURPOSE or the FUNCTION of a society…and how do we DESIGN one that will FULFILL that purpose for us?And as we KNOW…people TOOK this OBVIOUS PURPOSE that MUST BE embedded into everything…and they RAN with it. They ran… so far with it…forrest gump’s got nothing on these people. Turns out as NARRATIVE CREATURES we can get a little CARRIED AWAY with the ASSUMPTIONS we’re making about what the obvious PURPOSE of all this stuff is. And as Nagel says a couple thousand years later right around the beginning of the modern scientific revolution, there were some THINKERS at the time that had enough of it… and came up with a great idea. There were |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-15|SEVERAL of them…Francis Bacon, building off the work of Descartes, Galileo, Isaac Newton, many others at the time…but these GREAT thinkers looked around them and saw a bunch of people who were pretty distracted… all things considered…they were doing science with an Aristotelian scientific method assuming the PURPOSES to things…they saw people around them studying ALCHEMY believing that certain metals had SPIRITUAL properties that we just couldn’t see…they LOOK at all this stuff…THEMSELVES embedded INTO it by the way I mean Newton spent a lot of his LIFE on alchemy…but they LOOK at it and eventually there’s this idea like okay…ALL this non-material stuff…this has become a DISTRACTION, people.We’re not making as much progress as we COULD be making on the quantifiable side of things… because we’re too busy focusing on all this stuff we CAN’T measure. So how bout this: how bout we take ALL this OTHER non-material stuff…that today we would call consciousness, cognition, qualities, purposes, value and all the rest of it…and let’s BRACKET that stuff OFF as the domain that science DOESN’T try to study…and let’s INSTEAD see what happens if we stay in the realm of the three dimensions, MATERIAL reality… let’s DO that… and |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-16|see if anything changes. Well that HAPPENED. And now we’re sequencing the genome and this podcast is being delivered to you by invisible waves that are flying through the sky. Yeah, turned out to be a VERY GOOD thing on the quantifiable side of things. But the POINT is: what STARTED with these thinkers as a very CONSCIOUS CHOICE to bracket OFF certain aspects of reality to clear the way for studying the PHYSICAL side things better…meaning, they KNEW good and well they WEREN’T, HARNESSING ALL of reality…what started as that…with all the PROGRESS being made in the sciences…to Thomas Nagel over the years this turned into an overall attitude in academia… NOT JUST that material explanations are what we should be AIMING for…but INSTEAD FURTHER…that if something CAN’T be explained by studying the materials its MADE out of…it’s either an illusion, it DOESN’T really exist, or it’s a DE-LUSION, or its scientific ignorance where there MUST BE some material explanation that’s possible…but we’re just essentially a bunch of monkeys rattling their cages frustrated that we haven't done enough science yet to FULLY understand it.  As Phillip Goff says over the years you can SEE this attitude start to crop UP in different |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-17|places. Nietzsche famously declaring God is dead. Marx saying that religion is the opiate of the masses. Freud saying that a belief in God is ultimately a longing for daddy. And what this LEADS to… is a more COMMON ideological attitude amongst people living at the beginning of the 21st century that SCIENCE is the way that we arrive at the truth…and anything that ISN’T understandable by studying the MATERIALS that something is made out of… is LIKELY to be religious NONSENSE. And what this LEADS to…is an OVERALL SKEPTICISM in people…of NON-MATERIAL explanations for things…hence the views on consciousness…where no matter how NON-MATERIAL it may seem…ITS GOTTA BE in the BRAIN somewhere, HIDDEN from us, we JUST NEED more TIME. Or with hard determinism, no matter HOW MUCH IT SEEMS like we make free choices…GOTTA ultimately be predictable with the atoms and prior events in some way. Or that morality… is at BEST something that’s completely subjective…and at WORST it’s a total delusion, purely relative, just monkeys rattling their cage. These positions are LOGICAL conclusions… if you’re STARTING from the ideology of material reductionism. As well as conclusions that life is completely meaningless, that it is OBVIOUS we live in a |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-18|totally disinterested, absurd universe, and that nothing really matters. That’s a hallmark of the times as well. But I want to paint a picture of a ‘what if” scenario that Thomas Nagel and Phillip Goff would want us to consider. Philosophize This everybody. What if in 500 years people look back on the TIME we’re living in right now…and they SEE the ways that we think about science and materialism…and they say look, I GET it, I get where they were coming from back then. These people KNEW their religious history and how they used to project MEANINGS onto things that were fake. They didn’t want to do THAT again. These people SAW the miracles of science all AROUND them…and were living in the WAKE of some of the GREATEST scientific discoveries the world had ever SEEN at the time. They had MAD RESPECT for science. But BECAUSE they were living in this PRECISE historical MOMENT…because it was UNDERSTANDABLE to COMMIT yourself to materialism in THIS EXTREME of a way…these people IGNORED the OBVIOUS PURPOSE and ORDER to the universe that was staring them in the face the whole time…that ANYBODY living 500 years before or after just assumes as OBVIOUS. As one |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-19|of those NECESSARY philosophical assumptions we have to smuggle in to be CAPABLE of doing good science. Something on the LEVEL of induction or the rational coherence of the universe. What if THAT’S how this time ends up being seen?Well let’s consider it for a second: is there ANY guarantee that the CURRENT scientific theoretical model is THE model that’s going to be able to explain EVERYTHING? The people that CREATED it knew that they were bracketing off large sections of reality…is it time we start talking about parsimonious assumptions we could bring in additionally, to FILL IN some of these gaps. What gaps though? There’s no gaps. Well, that’s the thing to someone like Thomas Nagel…a fan of the new Atheist movement will be quick to attack a creationist for using what they call a God of the Gaps argument. We’ve all heard this one. To bring back our example of the eye from before…a creationist will say, look you scientists may be able to explain all the PARTS of the eye and how it was naturally selected to refract light and produce VISION. But NONE of you can explain how that EYE was created in the first place. And |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-20|where YOU guys can’t EXPLAIN things with your science…I’m gonna say that God did it. Again wherever there’s a gap in scientific explanation so far…GOD must have done it. The God of the gaps.But Nagel says there’s ANOTHER trap you can fall into on the OTHER side of it as well. When someone is SO COMMITTED to materialism that they WON'T see outside the borders of it for ANY alternative explanation of reality…they can start to give what he calls the evolution…of the gaps argument. That if something ISN’T explained by the CURRENT theoretical model fully…well it COULDN’T be that maybe the model itself needs some work…ANY GAP in our understanding of things will EVENTUALLY be filled by science…we just need a couple more thousand years of doing science the same exact way we are right now. But history is FILLED with changes to the theoretical models that we use to understand reality.Maybe you’ve heard of Aristotle’s four causes from back when HE was doing his work. Aristotle lived during a time where he obviously DIDN’T have access to all the scientific knowledge we have now…and partially BECAUSE of that…HE was interested in a LARGER question that’s interesting to think about: |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-21|what is it…to have a full UNDERSTANDING of something? Like of COURSE there’s having a PARTIAL understanding of something…and there’s all different KINDS of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT any one particular thing… but if we wanted to say that we UNDERSTOOD something FULLY…what would that require? Take the example of a chair. Modern science focuses primarily on understanding the materials that the chair is made out of and the process or sequence of events that LED to that chair being the way that it is. But is this having a FULL understanding of all things CHAIR? Aristotle would say NO having a full understanding of ANY one particular thing requires knowing its four different causes or explanations: there’s the material cause what it’s made out of. There’s the efficient cause, the maker or process that created the chair. The formal cause, the form or design of the chair. And the final cause, the purpose or FUNCTION of the chair. And to Aristotle, until you have ALL of these…you don’t have a full understanding of what that CHAIR is…or WHATEVER it is whether its a chair…a human brain, or the universe. Well Thomas Nagel gives an example in his book Mind and Cosmos. He says picture |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-22|a pocket calculator. You can type in the keys 5+3= and there will be a little pixelized 8 that comes up on the calculator telling you the answer to the problem. Now there’s ONE type of explanation of what just went on there he says…you can give a purely MATERIAL account of what just went on by describing the plastic that the buttons are made out of, the solar power, the electricity going through the different microchips and circuits. What you would have is a great MATERIAL explanation…but what you would ALSO have is an incomplete explanation of what it was that just went on. Because outside of ANYTHING MATERIAL that is going on…there is also this NON-MATERIAL understanding of a mathematical SYSTEM that you need to even be able to grasp the RELEVANCE of the problem that was just solved. There’s a teleological understanding that’s needed…or else we’re ALWAYS potentially cutting our own LEGS off with our own theoretical model.So take Neo-Darwinian evolution as a theory…as a fan of science you may see this as an incredible explanation for the EFFICIENT CAUSE, or for HOW something like the eye of a creature, came about because of certain environmental conditions. But |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-23|no matter HOW much you think that explains the HOW…it does NOTHING to explain the WHY. There's a difference between a cause…and an explanation. There's a difference between having a sequence of events, and an explanation. There’s a sense in which…we NEED more HOLISTIC explanations for the PURPOSES of these things within a larger system to be able to GET a full understanding of them…but it ALSO seems to be true to Nagel that at a CERTAIN point…a purely MATERIALIST, Neo-Darwinian account of reality CANNOT GET us there. At the VERY least when it comes to consciousness, cognition and value. As nagel says if life forms with rich experiences of mental life are not anomalies, but as they seem to be, just integral parts of nature…then if that’s the case…biology as a field…cannot be a purely physical science. What are we missing in our understanding of these life forms? Aristotle would definitely think it’s something important. The goal is again not to destroy the sciences, but to ask how can we incorporate all of the great science that we’ve done into a more broad, meaningful picture of what reality is?And to be clear here: neither Thomas Nagel OR Phillip Goff are saying |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-24|that because a materialist, neo-darwinian account of reality doesn’t have all the answers…that there MUST be some guy sitting up in the clouds with a PLAN for everybody. Again, an ideology, once you find contradictions doesn’t have to be REPLACED by its opposite. In fact quick aside: in many ways…what these two MODERN philosophers are trying to DO here, from the perspective of someone like Slavoj Zizek…is that they’re trying to find a resolution between these two sides that SUPPOSEDLY are OPPOSITES. This is Hegel’s Dialectic in ACTION to Zizek. This is how social progress is MADE. There’s the two ideologies positioned on EITHER side of an argument…and BOTH of these positions are both NECESSARY AND INEVITABLE, and both of them contain PARTIAL TRUTHS about reality…as WELL as containing their own CONTRADICTIONS.And it’s through BATTLING it OUT in this FORUM of ideas that both sides end up RESOLVING the contradictions that are at the bottom of their worldview…to Hegel…this is the DIALECTICAL way that ideas progress. Now, Zizek slightly DISAGREES with Hegel here…he doesn’t think that we’re RESOLVING contradictions through this process…but really just UNDERSTANDING our OWN contradictions better and getting more CLARITY about the issue overall. We’ll talk more about that |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-25|next episode when we talk about Zizek and ideological progress. But again this debate between material reductionists on the one hand and creationists on the other…with Thomas Nagel and Phillip Goff sitting SOMEWHERE in the middle trying to PRESERVE the best of both worlds…this can serve as a pretty good visual for the TYPE of ideological battle that Zizek thinks is going on EVERYWHERE. And that’s what MATTERS to a philosopher like Phillip Goff. How do we ANSWER these fundamental questions about the purposes of things and value in the universe…without sacrificing ANYTHING that’s GREAT about science as it’s currently done. The TITLE of Phillip Goff’s new book where he tries to explore some ANSWERS to this…is called Why? The purpose of the universe. And BEFORE we talk about HOW purpose in the universe MAY make sense…WITHOUT there being some supernatural man with a staff. I wanna follow up on the WHAT IF scenario that we gave before: if we ARE living in a particular moment in history where we’re obsessed with materialism in more ways than one…then THAT MUST MEAN that there’s EVIDENCE that the universe HAS a purpose all around me…and I’m just either not SEEING it…or reframing it through my |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-26|own biases in a way where it’s explained away. Where is that evidence? Chapter two of Phillip Goff’s book is called Why Science Points to Purpose. He starts by saying that for a long time…there WASN’T good evidence to point to for believing in purpose. Over a hundred YEARS without it. But all that has CHANGED to him in the last few decades. As you MAY already be aware of: scientists that STUDY the nature of reality LOOK at reality through what’s known as the standard model. Among other things this includes certain CONSTANTS, certain FIXED NUMBERS we have to plug into our EQUATIONS about reality in order for the equations to work. These CONSTANTS include things like the masses of fundamental particles and the exact strength of the forces that are governing them. Well as Goff says ONCE we figured OUT what these fixed values were…people got curious, started running computer simulations wondering what the universe would BE like if these fixed values were different. And what they found was that the OVERWHELMING majority of the possible universes that are out there were completely incompatible with the existence of life. And not just carbon based life like WE know about…but ANY kind |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-27|of chemical complexity whatsoever…the periodic TABLE of elements doesn’t exist in most of these worlds.For example: the strong nuclear force–the force that binds together the elements in the nucleus of an atom…the fixed VALUE of that can be represented Goff says by the number .007. Now JUST as an example here…. IF that number had been .006 or LESS the universe would have contained nothing but hydrogen. If it had been .008 or HIGHER…almost all the hydrogen would have been burned off in the big bang and water would have never existed. Chemical complexity would have never existed. And this extends to the physical properties of things he says. If the mass of a down quark had been greater by a factor of three…the universe would have contained only hydrogen. If electrons had been bigger by a factor of 2.5 the universe would contain only neutrons. Contrast that with the more than 60 MILLION chemical compounds we know about in OUR universe. Combine this with the discovery of the value of the cosmological constant, or the amount of dark energy in empty space…and the fact that this is a number that is so small and so precise, that to even READ the |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-28|number of trillions here to TELL you about it would be a chore… and then to KNOW that if it were even SLIGHTLY bigger things would have shot apart too quickly in the universe for gravity to be able to clump them into stars and planets…and if it was slightly smaller then the universe would have collapsed back in on itself. When you consider all of this and the very SPECIFIC way that OUR universe is. To Phillip Goff you’re left with a choice. You can accept all this as a WILD coincidence, which you may. OR you can consider what he calls the Value-selection hypothesis or the IDEA…that the numbers that we see in the fine tuning of physics are the way they are BECAUSE they allow for a universe containing great value. As he says, “a universe where there is life in all its richness, including people who can fall in love, experience great beauty, and contemplate their own existence.”Now the value-selection hypothesis is just ONE position of MANY that Phillip Goff explores in the book. But it DOESN’T necessary have to be VALUE-selection…to HIM this is one subcomponent of a much LARGER discussion that is neglected in his |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-29|eyes of COSMIC PURPOSE in the universe that exists WITHOUT some omni-god that must have created it. Much more on that in a second… but it would be IMPORTANT to Phillip Goff here to pause and speak to some of the people out there that would be PERFECTLY FINE seeing what HE calls overwhelming evidence for purpose…as just a coincidence. Like a common response BACK to hearing this could be: uh, well I’m not AGAINST it. BUt how about the fact that coincidences happen Phillip Goff? It’s not that I can’t see how this COULD be possible…what I’M saying is: in MY world extraordinary claims… require extraordinary evidence! Or how about the MULTIVERSE theory, haven’t quantum physicists already EXPLAINED how all this is possible and it ultimately DOESN’T really mean anything? Well he gives responses to ALL of these questions and even MORE in the book. I want to be respectful and not cannibalize too much of it. But I WILL say this…that when it comes to the MULTIVERSE and this OTHER conversation we’re having right now about ideology…NOTICE…how the theory of the multiverse, could EASILY be a point that a materialist has POPPING up in their head INSTANTLY when they start |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-30|to HEAR all this…like yeah, it’s HIGHLY unlikely we’d get a universe fine tuned for life…1 in 10 to the 136…but with the MULTIVERSE theory…there’s 10 to the 136 and far MORE universes than THAT and this is just the one we LANDED on! NOTICE how this is an entirely, non-material, theoretical explanation to ground their worldview that, ironically, needs to be always grounded in material evidence. Again, ideology can be something that’s SO POWERFUL…a TYPE of person who is a rational, THINKING person but one who’s romanticizing science… will SAY these kinds of things not even THINKING about the contradiction that may be there. To Zizek, it ALMOST lies in the subconscious, again some more food for thought and preparation for next episode. But how about just the more GENERAL question someone might ask Phillip Goff…what if it IS just a coincidence? I mean forget ideology, couldn’t it just be a coincidence? Goff would say it’s possible I guess…but again look… PART of the way we MODEL our understanding of the world around us in the sciences and otherwise is by USING probabilities. And just given the evidence we have, filtered through a very standard Baysen’ probability equation that we use |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-31|to model a lot of OTHER ways that we see reality…to Phillip Goff…in light of this new evidence that has emerged relatively recently…it is just FAR MORE LIKELY that the value selection hypothesis is true. Or that it’s far LESS likely that its false. And he goes into this in the book he says people can say look you’re like that guy that’s making breakfast in the morning and he looks at his toast and he sees the face of jesus in his toast and thinks God is trying to communicate with him. Like what are the odds man?But he says jesus showing up in your toast is unlikely…but it’s not THAT unlikely all things considered. Planet being in the Goldilocks zone where it supports life existing on it…that’s unlikely…but not THAT unlikely. We’re talking about 1 in 10 to the 136. That’s the equivalent of sitting at a table, rolling a dice and it coming up six 174 times in a row. As Goff says at a certain point you wouldn’t be saying welp there it is, six again! How’s that for a coincidence! You’d be thinking the dice is loaded so that it always comes up as six or |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-32|that there’s SOME explanation for this.He says in the book: “Scientists in the 16th century struggled to accept the mounting evidence that the earth was not, contrary to what had been assumed for thousands of years, in the center of the universe. Popular science discussion often involves scoffing at this inability of our ancestors to follow the evidence where it leads. But every generation absorbs a worldview that it can’t see beyond. In our own time, we are so used to the idea that science has done away with cosmic purpose that we are incapable of dispassionately considering the overwhelming evidence that has emerged in support of the Value-Selection Hypothesis. It may take time for the culture to catch up with the evidence.”There’s a sense in which if you’re a skeptic. GOOD ON YOU for being a skeptic…we NEED SKEPTICS in this world. But just one of these days…when no one’s around you, try doing it in the shower when no one’s looking, just allow yourself to temporarily RELEASE…the skepticism for a second…that with this 1 in 10 to the 136 probability of it being structured this way…just allow yourself to entertain that we’re PART of something that has a greater |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-33|PURPOSE to it. NOT jesus lotion…not one given by a god that CARES about you individually…but an impersonal, teleological LAW to the universe, something immanent in nature…where the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, motion, these are maybe SUB components of a HIGHER level teleological LAW that SELECTS for chemical complexity or rationality or value. Now, this is not EXPLICITLY Goff…but this is very much along this line of thinking where we consider OTHER conceptual frameworks to view the SAME empirical data through and it CHANGES our view of what reality is. Remember our example of light from before. Again, the goal here is not to undermine the sciences…but to find a way to incorporate ALL of the great science we’ve done so far, and explore how it connects to a landscape of MEANING. To build ONE of HIS cases for PURPOSE existing in the universe WITHOUT the existence of a personal God…Phillip Goff cites the work of Thomas Nagel and his book Mind and Cosmos, who HIMSELF was building off a version of teleological laws given by John Hawthorne and Daniel Nolan. He says: “What Nagel had realized is that there is no incoherence in the idea of cosmic purpose without God, provided we |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-34|can expand our conception of the laws that govern our universe. The laws of nature we have been used to for the past 500 years move from past to future–ensuring that what happens at earlier times determines what happens at later times. Nagel’s proposal is that there may also be laws that move from future to past–ensuring that the present is shaped by the need to get closer to certain goals in the future, such as the emergence of life. In other words, there may be laws of nature with GOALS built into them. WE call these teleological laws.”There are certain things to Goff that just don’t make SENSE or seem HIGHLY UNLIKELY if we live in a universe without ANY sort of goal-directedness about it. Not JUST fine tuning or the cosmological constant…but the emergence of CONSCIOUSNESS, or us being the sort of creatures that have experiences that are FULL of meaning and value. If we take a PURELY neo-darwinian approach to explaining this…natural selection just cares about BEHAVIOR. There’s absolutely no reason he says that we NEEDED to evolve with rich, subjective experiences of the world like this. It makes little SENSE that we did with our current |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-35|theories…but it makes TOTAL sense if the universe is goal-driven towards selecting for value. Considering the value selection hypothesis ALSO opens up the possibility of exploring theories that account for free will. Take ANOTHER example that Phillip Goff explains in the book…the theory of Panagentialism…where if you consider a teleology of rationality to the universe, particles as he says could be disposed from their own nature to respond RATIONALLY, to their experience. Part of the thinking is: look, WE…as human beings…have an understanding of rationality and what it is to be RATIONAL that has been HIGHLY SHAPED by millions of years of survival oriented EXISTENCE, running from lions back in the day…running from door to door solar panel SALES people in TODAY’S world…but what if RATIONALITY is ACTUALLY…something far more LAYERED than that, something that orders reality itself, in an unseen way almost like gravity.Where the stuff…that’s all AROUND us in the world, is RATIONAL stuff. That there’s a very SIMPLE KIND of rational impulse going on that explains the SIMPLE kind of behavior of particles and non-conscious objects…but that WHEN this PROTO-agency gets coupled with experiential understanding and consciousness…well it starts to have some big implications on the possibility of |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68-36|free will. Again, the conceptual frameworks we view reality through… CHANGE our view of reality. If the universe is meaningless, the logical conclusion is absurdity. But if it’s not…then what does that make the logical conclusion for a person born into it? What does that make the logical way we should be setting up our societies?The book is a fun, interesting EXPLORATION of a resolution between some common disagreements in philosophy…and the hope from Phillip Goff is that this book can HELP MOVE the conversation forward in a productive way. It’s called Why: the purpose of the universe.Now that said: hopefully this was all very thought provoking. Not just when it comes to the details of the scientific theoretical model, our responsibility there if we want to have better and better conversations, but also when it comes to the role of ideology in ALL of this discussion if you’re Slavoj Zizek. I just PICTURE Zizek waiting right now for his ideas we’re gonna discuss on next episode. I just see him sitting on the sidelines, in a field, at a soccer game, sitting in one of those fold out chairs…eating a hotdog, watching this game being played that we’re talking |2024-03-11T14:12:32.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-cwz68|197|Episode #197 - New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-0|  So at the end of last episode I asked about the possibility of doing an interview with Slavoj Zizek in the coming weeks. And the response was overwhelmingly positive…but there WERE some people expressing their concerns… like don’t change the format of the show, Stephen West…don’t turn this into an interview show. And sorry I wasn’t more clear about it last time: we’re doing a SERIES of the show on zizek right now and then several OTHER big thinkers doing their work today that’s the direction we’re moving in… and I really just wanted to know if anyone was interested in a conversation totally ADDITIONAL to the podcast that i’d put out there if anyone wanted to hear it. I mean do you guys think I WANT to make this into an interview show, do you think I want to turn what we’re doing here into just… background noise, that people put on whenever they’re doing ACTUALLY important stuff? Please I LOVE this show…I love dhow much value we can pack into 30 mins. I just want to keep doing the stuff you fine people enjoy. That said, in retrospect, I PROBABLY should’ve waited to ASK if anyone wanted to |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-1|hear Zizek until AFTER I did this first episode of the series. Reason being is with every ONE of these podcasts…there’s always a different CHALLENGE that comes up, specific to the episode, that needs to be solved…and the one that came up for Zizek was: how do you make someone as COMPLEX as Zizek can be sometimes…ACCESSIBLE to people who may not even know who he is or what he’s even talking about…but do that in a way that ALSO doesn’t make it too boring for people that are ALREADY fans of his work?So just keep in mind that’s what I’m trying to DO in this episode…as dumb as that may be you can never cover all of Zizek in a day. And because I’m writing this trying to be respectful to BOTH those audiences…I guess it just NEEDS to be said right at the start: that if you’ve never heard of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek before…well first of all he’s a Slovenian philosopher, alive today, he’s doing his work right now…and I guess the most ACCURATE way to describe what some people THINK about him as a philosopher… is that people are often CONFUSED about what it is that he’s |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-2|trying to say when he says it. For a number of different reasons. In fact if you’re new to him as a thinker you should probably take a listen to him so you can get a frame of reference here. Good news is there’s TONS of him out there, just go to wherever you watch videos, type in Zizek… and I guess sit down and hold on to the sides of your chair really, really tight. This is a man who at first glance has a very bizarre method of delivering what it is that he’s trying to say, but it’s INTENTIONALLY bizarre…which we’ll get to by the end of this. This is a man that is FAMOUS for saying lines like Ghandi was more violent than Hitler. Or that Joseph Stalin was a very honest man. Or that Heidegger was not a great philosopher in SPITE of his time as a Nazi…he was great BECAUSE he was a Nazi. These are REAL THINGS that he has SAID. Now ANY intelligent person who HEARS this stuff HAS to assume well this is obviously an act. This is a schtick. He’s just SAYING this stuff to provoke people and to get a reaction out |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-3|of them. And it’s TEMPTING at this point to just write OFF Zizek as some sort of philosophical troll. Not really saying anything of value.  But if a troll online is someone just saying stuff so they can make people offended and then get a reaction…then the word troll doesn’t even come CLOSE to describing what Zizek is doing. Because part of the reason he USES this provocative style of communication is to purposefully disorient people, shake them out of a dogmatic slumber that they’ve been living in their entire life, where they’ve internalized ideology and typical ways of thinking, to the point where they’re not even totally aware of the ideological game that they’re participating in every day of their life. Zizek once said… that a worry of his when it comes to his work is NOT that he’s gonna be IGNORED by the masses…but that he’s gonna be accepted by the masses. Why would a philosopher be worrying about something like that? To try to understand it…we gotta try to see things from Zizek’s perspective as MUCH as we can which is what I’m here to try to do. And zooming out… as much as I can, I think, is the |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-4|best place to START trying to do that. Because while Zizek NO DOUBT has a bunch of different takes on specific modern issues that certainly will get you THINKING about them in a different way than you ever have before…and we’ll TALK about those…there’s a sense in which…before we ever even get there.. we FIRST gotta know where he’s coming from with the method or the FORM of his philosophy. By the end of this episode we’ll understand why it may be useful to look at Zizek as a work of art…instead of just SIMPLY as a philosopher. So ONE thing you gotta know about Slavoj Zizek is that among other things, he is nothing short of INCREDIBLE when it comes to his knowledge of philosophical theory. And he’s even MORE impressive when you consider how WIDE of a range of thinkers he’s able to reference and bring IN to modern discussions to reinterpret culture like he does. The 101 VERSION of this if you were just searching for basic FACTS on Zizek is that there are three MAIN thinkers that are near and dear to his heart: there’s Hegel who we’ve talked about on this podcast, there’s Marx who’s useful when |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-5|critiquing late stage global capitalism, and then there’s the famous French psychoanalyst named Jacques Lacan. That from here on out I’m just going to call Lacan…because I’m not french, and trying my hardest here not to sound like a pretentious douchebag saying Lacan. Now again Zizek interprets the world through FAR MORE than just these three thinkers, but there is some truth to them being particularly IMPORTANT to him. And there’s a million starting points we could pick here for talking about his work but I just want to pick one…GET us started… and ask a very general philosophical question where we can compare a typical way of viewing it… to the way Zizek sees it. Here’s the question: What is it like to BE someone who’s having conversations with other people about how to make the world a better place? As a person that’s participating in that…what has your experience of that BEEN like your entire life?Now I realize that this is a weird question. Because I’m NOT asking what IS it to make the world a better place…or what tactics do we use to MAKE social or ethical progress that would make the world a better place, but specifically: |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-6|what is it like to BE a HUMAN SUBJECT that is PARTICIPATING in that process? We’re talking about human subjectivity here which Zizek spends a LOT of time on.Well there’s MANY answers to this question: a common ANSWER in the modern western world could be that someone thinks well I’m born, my life begins and I know almost NOTHING the world as a baby. But then AS my life went on I learned a lot of stuff about how the WORLD works: I got an education. I read newspapers, I watched documentaries, I listened to really smart people TALK about how the world works…and then FROM all this… I formed my opinions based on what the TRUTH seems to be and what I think the best path forward is for society. So to answer the question: when I’m TALKING to people in these political discussions…I’m really just testing MY understanding of the truth… up against OTHER people’s understanding of the truth. I’m a TRUTH SEEKER, really. That’s all that I am. And in the process of SEEKING truth I’ve gotten into some pretty heated political debates for sure. Come across someone who votes DIFFERENT than me… I try to point out contradictions |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-7|in how THEY see things…they try to point out contradictions in how I see things…and while it’s pretty uncomfortable to BE in these debates, may get me riled up sometimes…ultimately, if the person across the table is a reasonable person who’s well educated: there is a CHANCE the two of us may be able to come to some sort of a resolution, there is a chance…I might be able to convince this person to come over to my SIDE on a couple things. That’s how social PROGRESS is made.That’s…if they’re REASONABLE, this person might say. But let’s be HONEST this person might also say…MOST of the people in today’s day and age that I COME across in these conversations are NOT reasonable people…MOST of the people that vote DIFFERENTLY than me these days…are ideologues. These are not people that are trying to CHANGE their MIND about anything…they’re people who have just DECIDED to BELIEVE in an ideology. They’ve FOUND the truth about the way the world is… and they ain't moving. They already GOT the truth from their pastor when they were eight years old, or from their favorite youtuber/podcaster, or from their cultural studies teacher in their sophomore year of college: |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-8|these are people that have supposedly FOUND the gospel… and now they’re gonna spend the rest of their life like a fundamentalist in the public square screaming at everyone for being a heretic, for going AGAINST the gospel, how dare you not believe the things MY teacher told me.This person might say you can start to feel bad for them…if it WASN’T for the fact that IDEOLOGY itself…is DERAILING this PROCESS of social and ethical progress. Look I’m a truth seeker, not an ideologue. And these people quite frankly are a problem for society.Now if you TAKE everything I just said there as ONE possible way to VIEW what you’re doing when you PARTICIPATE in the political process…Slavoj Zizek’s gonna disagree. He’s gonna say that what this person LACKS when they SEE themselves as a TRUTH SEEKER…is a deeper level of awareness about the GAME that they’re actually participating in everyday when they have these political discussions.He’d probably start with the oversimplified way that the word ideology is being used here. He’d say that it is NOT the case…that YOU are someone who’s REALLY SEARCHING for the truth and that ideology is just something reserved for people that have GIVEN |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-9|UP on the search for truth. No matter HOW good your intentions are…no matter HOW much you DON’T follow some codified doctrine…no matter if you’re agnostic and say oh I’ll seek the truth my WHOLE life and I’ll never actually ARRIVE there…doesn’t matter: to Zizek…you are ALWAYS making SENSE of the world THROUGH the lens of an ideology. Or more accurately: a bunch of DIFFERENT ideologies STACKED on TOP of each other that have huge effects on your thoughts, values, desires and what you end up DOING in the world.The question to Zizek is NOT do you HAVE an ideology…but how self-AWARE are you of the ideological structures that dictate your thinking? And then from that place of self-awareness… how self-DETERMINING can your actions become?Let’s slow down for a second though. Let’s rewrite the story from before about what it is to participate in political discussions. Zizek would AGREE with at least the FIRST part of the story: we ARE born into the world as babies and don’t really know ANYTHING about it. But then Zizek is going to ask the question, INSPIRED by the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan…how does that BABY… FORM all these complicated things that it brings to |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-10|those political discussions later ON in life, like its sense of identity, it’s views about how the world works, how it fits INTO social systems…how does that BABY in other words acquire its subjectivity? Well MOSTLY Zizek thinks from what Lacan called the Symbolic Order. It sounds super fancy, but just stay with me.A question in conversations about human subjectivity is: how can this BABY in our example ever HOPE to understand…the full, chaotic COMPLEXITY of BASE reality? How can it just be BORN into the world and then understand all that on its own? Well, it CAN’T. So what does the baby do? It learns to make SENSE of its reality through the mediation of SYMBOLS of all different types that SIMPLIFY reality. The symbolic ORDER. For example: language… is a collection of symbols. As we know: a word is a type of symbol that makes reference to something in reality…but as we ALSO know… words are limited and can never truly capture the full EXTENT of what something is. Words are not REALITY…but to most of us that doesn’t really MATTER that much…words do a good enough job to communicate MOST of the time, right? Well AS these words are combined |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-11|and then systematized… they then give rise to OTHER types of symbols we use to make sense of things: things like rituals, traditions, social norms…these are undeniably things that help people organize the endless possibilities in life… BUT, we ALSO recognize that at another level there’s nothing OBJECTIVE about these things.Combine and systematize THOSE symbols… and eventually you land at symbols that are even MORE complex. How about political stances like conservative or progressive? How about social or economic policies? How about postmodernism, or classical liberalism, or pragmatism, or multiculturalism– NONE of these are harnessing the full TRUTH about reality. How COULD they be? They’re just elaborate collections of symbols that people have come up with to try to describe certain ASPECTS of reality in an incomplete way. And when these symbolic ways of simplifying reality…get unified under a framework that gives someone a comprehensive way of understanding BIG things like HOW society works overall, the ROLES of individuals in a society, the relationships between different groups…when YOUR collection of SYMBOLS starts to align you with OTHER people who feel the same way as YOU do, and you guys got your identical narratives that LED to your world view…and your shared |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-12|lingo and special terms that you use together, terms that you CALL each other, where you share the same fantasies or desires about what you want the world to look like…to Zizek these are the FINGERPRINTS, the EVIDENCE… that you are making sense of the world through a framework of ideology. In other words: NOBODY is accessing the truth. Everybody’s reality is mediated by symbols, everybody has been internalizing ideology from the MOMENT they were born, where their identity, their social roles, how they see themselves, their SUBJECTIVITY COMES from the interaction they’ve had throughout their life with these SYMBOLS that simplify the world for us. Again the question to zizek is… NOT whether you HAVE an ideology…the question is how self aware are you of YOURS?So while the word IDEOLOGY being connected to someone’s thinking may most of the time carry with it a purely NEGATIVE connotation…to Zizek…having an ideology… is not FAR from just being alive and having THOUGHTS on the world in a type of human subjectivity where ideology… is inescapable. And from that perspective…ideology is not something that’s BAD necessarily. But again there ARE different degrees of self awareness ABOUT it. Zizek’s work…among other things… is a |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-13|call to action for people to think critically and UNDERSTAND the TRUE nature of this game that we’re all participating in.See he’s NOT saying that everyone’s the same here. Religious fanatic, Nobel Laureate…SAME PERSON! No…obviously…there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between the people that uncritically ACCEPT an ideology, spend the REST of their lives being a foot soldier for it, thinking they’ve arrived at the truth with a capital T. Who needs thinkin’ anymore? Big difference between THAT person and someone who’s a bit more humble and open to SEEING the world differently. But you’re not off the hook just because you can point to somebody else around you and say look that person’s worse off than me! They’re the REAL problem I’m just a TRUTH seeker! But you are STILL living under the structures of ideology in BIG ways that you may not even REALIZE. Because no matter HOW HUMBLE you are…that’s the thing about ideology. To Slavoj Zizek: there will ALWAYS be a gap… between what symbols can explain about reality, and the REAL. Between our constant SEARCH for TRUTH and OBJECTIVE truth. Between some universal meaning to life… and the meaning that we can find in the world for short |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-14|periods of time in our lives. There will ALWAYS be that lack. That negativity. And there’s USEFUL things ABOUT that lack if you’re Zizek, and we’ll get to them…but the point is: ideologies are DESIGNED… to be things that take that GAP that exists…and make the world look so simple that the gap isn’t there anymore. Ideologies give people a very NARROW lens to see the world through, and then convince them that what they’re seeing is just the TRUTH. And BECAUSE that LENS… will DISTORT and MASK the TRUE nature of social structures, and because people often are at the MERCY of how OTHERS view these social structures…that makes ideology to Zizek… a particularly DANGEROUS form of passively exploiting people…if it’s not well understood. So to HIM we gotta TRY to understand it. YOU have to try to understand YOURS. And you HAVE to try to understand it GENERALLY… because the same kind of TACTICS are often used across DIFFERENT ideologies. Turns out: there’s some common tactics that are very effective at CAPTURING people’s psychology.You gotta ask questions like: HOW exactly does ideology work? HOW does ideology affect the values, the desires, the beliefs of people? Where does it get injected? How |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-15|does the language of an ideology MASK certain aspects of a reality…the SUFFERING of people a world is built on the backs of? HOW does ideology so EFFECTIVELY give the people immersed in it a more narrow worldview… where BECAUSE of how narrow their field of view is…they then PRESERVE that ideology despite the bad that its doing? You want a philosophical exercise to try to practice seeing the world a little more like Zizek sees it…try listening to a conversation between two people talking about the state of the world right now. Just if you LISTEN to podcasts or whatever it is… and you listen to one where two people have long form conversations on it…pull up an episode…listen to it and when you listen…don’t think about it as though these are just two people who are seeking the truth about the universe like I am…instead listen to it like you’re a detective or something… and you’re looking for evidence of the ideologies they’ve internalized… that they’re BRINGING into that conversation. Pay attention to the language or the metaphors they use to describe reality. Pay attention to the narratives they bring in about how society SHOULD be functioning. Notice how the |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-16|values they believe in will be something they’re all FOR when it brings about that world…but then their values will CHANGE the second it becomes about ANOTHER type of person or ANOTHER world that may come about. Again that selective VISION. Notice how they’ll blame all the PROBLEMS of the world on some OPPOSING ideology, which they’ll CALL an ideology funny enough. THEIR’S isn’t but THAT one IS. Zizek has a great line about this he says, “The minimum necessary structuring ingredient of every ideology is to distance itself from another ideology, to denounce its other as ideology.” This is one of the tactics. Notice how often when people make claims about how the world is they’ll try to make things not a matter of opinion, this isn’t ME saying this…this is the nature and truth of the universe…or in OTHER cases they’ll make things into something that’s COMPLETELY undefinable, just an arbitrary social construction. Notice… how many times if you’re paying attention… somebody who makes their ideology PUBLIC like this will contradict themselves in the same calendar month…and again…NONE of this is something that MAKES these people CONSCIOUS, EVIL foot soldiers of an ideology. In fact if somebody had an attitude where |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-17|they think that if you find contradictions in somebody else’s worldview…that they must just be stupid or misinformed…that’s ANOTHER thing Zizek would think is a little oversimplified. Contradictions and paradoxes…these are not the marks of someone being misinformed necessarily…to Zizek…these again are the marks of ideology. This is the EVIDENCE if you’re LOOKING for it...this is where you can SEE ideology REVEAL itself for what it truly is…not the TRUTH…but a collection of symbols trying to SIMPLIFY things that’s INCAPABLE of EVER fully capturing the REAL. You will ALWAYS have contradictions in the way you make sense of things…because of the WAY you’re making sense of things. In fact it can SEEM like if you are NOT AWARE… of the contradictions PRESENT in your OWN way of looking at the world…well, couple different options. One option is that you’re really just not TRYING very hard, you’re not truly AWARE of your own positions, maybe too busy trying to look for contradictions in other people. The other option is that for SOME people… who are pretty DEEPLY EMBEDDED into an ideology…while its not IMPOSSIBLE for them to see contradictions…it can be EFFECTIVELY impossible… because their field of view is so narrow that… they’ll just |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-18|never HAVE the THOUGHT where they come ACROSS the contradiction in their own thinking. To THAT person their whole LIFE might just feel like…well there’s NOTHING wrong with MY thinking…I just see the TRUTH about things.So again finding a contradiction in your worldview is not something to be embarrassed of to Zizek…in fact if anything it’s a sign that you’re actually doing the work of critically thinking…you’re starting to understand the limitations of ideology.Zizek LOVES to point OUT these contradictions and paradoxes in people, ESPECIALLY in politics. Take the environmentalist that wants to solve the problems CAUSED by consumerism by just BUYING more environmentally conscious products or INVESTING in green companies. Solving a problem caused by consumerism with more consumerism. This is ideology OBSCURING the true NATURE of the problem. Or take the fan of capitalism that says capitalism is GREAT because look at all the CHOICES it gives people! They can buy anything they WANT! HYPER FOCUSING on the fact that people can yes, choose between 15 different kinds of barbecue sauce at the store, but IGNORING the LACK of choice that people have when it comes to participating in any OTHER economic system. Again, ideology limiting the very definition |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-19|of choice. Now these are two examples that we recently used on the Anarchism series we just did and I’m sticking with them for right now because I don’t want to derail this more general conversation about Zizek’s work. Trust me though: These contradictions are EVERYWHERE to Zizek, and throughout this series we’re gonna be talking about ones he sees in SPECIFIC issues we’re dealing with today.And this is may be a good point in the episode to bring this back to the question of WHY Zizek DELIVERS his philosophy in the SPECIFIC ways that he does. How do we understand the FORM of Zizek’s philosophy…NOT JUST the content?Well FIRST I need to give an example of the format or STYLE that he often uses, you know confuse the everliving heck out of everyone, and THEN we’ll explain why he’s doing it that way GIVEN all that we’ve covered about Zizek so far. Here’s the format:He STARTS with a position…usually a position that’s held by people who see themselves as PROGRESSIVES in the western world…not just the LOADED term of progressive but people that generally think I have a policy that’s gonna make the world a better place. He starts with |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-20|a progressive position. And he will state their position. And he will make it sound super appealing… as though its so TRUE that it’s practically common sense, like who could EVER disagree with it…and then as QUICKLY as he does that… he will FLIP the position on its head, show it from a completely different angle by interpreting it through a DIFFERENT ideological framework… and then make a case for how in REALITY the position is actually the OPPOSITE of what it first seems to be. Showing that getting a deeper understanding about something…is going to come from finding the meaning that exists hidden in the margins… BEYOND what was CONSCIOUSLY intended by the person who held the position… BECAUSE of the limitations of what their ideology ALLOWS them to see.  And you may think he’s done but THEN he starts to go in on the MEAT of his arguments! Then he’ll point out contradictions and paradoxes…at this point he’ll most likely make MULTIPLE references from ALL over the place in the media landscape…for example he’ll compare the abortion debate to Lacan’s view of the Oedipus complex, which he will then compare to the peloponnesian war in ancient Greece, which he’ll then |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-21|flesh out a bit with a comparison to an episode of South Park he saw the other day, and then he’ll bring everything together, really hammer the point home by giving his Hegelian interpretation of the book eat pray love. That’s a CLASSIC structure of Zizek doing what he does best…and the POINT is that this TYPE of analysis can all be… so disorienting. People can feel like after listening to him…they’re having a hard time understanding EXACTLY what it was he was trying to say.But what they often times DON’T realize…is that THAT was his entire point. That if you DIDN’T feel disoriented by what he just said…then Zizek REALLY didn’t do his job. BECAUSE of how he sees ideology…the way it DICTATES so MUCH about how people see the world…his GOAL when he speaks… is NOT to give you neatly packaged together little FACT… that teaches you something NEW about the world that you can easily TACK ONTO and APPROPRIATE into your existing ideology. He KNOWS that a lot of people are watching looking for a CLEAR takeaway of a BETTER ideology the start BELIEVING in. But his goal isn’t to take the world, chew it up in his mouth |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-22|and momma bird it OVER to you like hey, take this BETTER ideology I have! No the REASON he targets PROGRESSIVES in PARTICULAR…is because he’s trying to WAKE UP the people who COULD be revolutionaries… if ONLY they SAW the RIGID ideological structures that LIMIT their thinking. Think of all that they could do if ONLY they were more aware of the GAME they’re actually participating in. As odd as it is as a way of going about it: Zizek is trying to be inspiring. He’s like if Hegel and Tony Robbins did in vitro fertilization and then moved into a time share in new york city. You know how Simone Weil would sit her students under a tree while she was teaching geometry… and when she was giving these lessons…she wouldn’t just ask a bunch of geometry questions and ask people to give answers…the goal WASN’T for students to find CONCLUSIONS, but to instead: discover new LINES of thought ABOUT geometry. New ways of seeing the questions themselves. UNDERSTANDING the questions at a deeper level rather than just memorizing answers. And to her it was like this is the way you DO it because if when you’re trying to learn about |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-23|the world if you set out and you’re looking for ANSWERS as to what the TRUTH is, you’re gonna FIND those answers…but sadly those answers are not the TRUTH. In many ways the answers you find just become FALSE IDOLS that you SETTLE for along the way. Well Zizek in a similar sort of way is ALSO TRYING to get people to SEE the world differently… by encouraging them to…see, the world…differently. To see something like a social issue for example TAKE any one that you like to debate…one  that you FEEL like you’re ALREADY very FAMILIAR with…and by FAMILIAR, that means you have PLENTY of ideological tools that have allowed you to “understand” the issue FULLY, (though its an oversimplification)...and when Zizek TALKS about it…by INTERPRETING the issue from a TOTALLY FOREIGN ideological LENS…the hope for him is that this shows how ideology can be used to interpret the world in a MILLION different ways…and the hope is to illustrate that the specific IDEOLOGY that you are INTERPRETING the world through has a MASSIVE impact on the selective VIEW you have of the issue you’re discussing. There’s always WAY MORE to understand about these issues…perspectives that you may ALREADY FEEL at |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-24|a certain level, but again the CONFINES of your ideology don’t allow for you to see it. The result is that you feel CONFUSED. I’ve never HEARD these kinds of CONNECTIONS being made before about these issues that I FEEL like I have a pretty solid grasp of. When Zizek says Ghandi was more violent than Hitler. It’s not that he’s on some sort of campaign AGAINST Ghandi. It’s that WHEN he says that the person listening has to confront some difficult questions. What is violence then? What are we trying to accomplish when we oppose violence? How does the ideology that I’m subscribed to get me to ignore CERTAIN kinds of violence? Even if these questions are EASILY answered by ideological tools…it AT LEAST gets people THINKING about the ASSUMPTIONS that they bring to bear on everything. Assumptions that otherwise may just sit around passively never being looked at. To Zizek…the GOAL is to SHAKE PEOPLE OUT… of the common ideological lanes that people fall into by default when they’re born into the world as those babies that internalize symbols. From a PROBABILITY standpoint…what are the most COMMON ones that people fall into?  There’s of COURSE religions that give people a TOTALIZING |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-25|worldview but this is a philosophy podcast: how bout the ones that are more cleverly disguised than that? Postmodernism, pragmatism, classical liberalism, socialism, capitalism…you can keep going down the list but you GET it from a PROBABILITY standpoint…these are the SYMBOLS people use to make sense of the world, and then cordon themselves off into GROUPS of like minded people. The HOPE is… that by getting people to SEE things OUTSIDE of these narrow takes…that a higher level of clarity about the issue overall will be arrived at because you will understand the TRUE stakes of whatever the conversation is about.And it doesn’t matter WHICH one it is they ALL have their different justifications for why THEY’RE REALLY the truth seekers of the world, THEY’RE not doing what everybody ELSE is doing, they’re SPECIAL! Say you’re a PRAGMATIST for example. You can say look, I don’t FOLLOW any of these isms…I don’t have a DOCTRINE…that’s why I’m a PRAGMATIST! Those post-modernists out there want to say that everything is a grand narrative, but where does that leave society? So instead of being lost in DOUBT for the rest of my life I just want to go with what WORKS for |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-26|a society! I mean, don’t we HAVE to keep moving forward? But to Zizek…you know he’d probably predict that if you’re a PRAGMATIST…that’s PROBABLY because things are going PRETTY WELL for you with the way things are currently set up. But how about all the people that things AREN’T going very well for that you probably never have to SEE that much given your ideological limitations and position in society? The REALITY of what’s WORKING for society all of a sudden becomes VERY DIFFERENT when the problems are on your doorstep…and the fact that some policy is WORKING in a PARTICULAR way that things are currently set up…says NOTHING about whether the system overall is ethical. A pragmatist, to Zizek, is often too UNCRITICAL of the status quo…they just want it to keep working. But anyway it’s been said by some…that Slavoj Zizek is kind of like a modern day socrates. And before you think that’s too crazy of a statement just CONSIDER it for a second. What does he do? Like Socrates, he is absolutely BIZARRE to someone EMBEDDED into one of these common ideologies. They DON’T understand him. Like Socrates when he goes into public in the Athenian Agora… Zizek |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-27|in OUR time makes himself public by doing interviews and media appearances. And when he ENGAGES with people IN these conversations…one of his big GOALS is to inspire DEEPER levels of critical thinking about things that people often take for granted. Another similarity…is that by HAVING these conversations and TAKING the positions he does…he pisses a lot of people off in the process. Because in OUR time…the MEDIA he’s taking advantage of for exposure…can’t really PLACE him POLITICALLY into a NEAT category where they can always RELY on him to AGREE with their politics. For every issue they may agree with him on there will be ANOTHER position he takes that is COMPLETELY outside the ideology of people trying to make a show where we’re all buddies, and we’re fighting against the bad guys and here’s our super smart philosopher friend to confirm to us that we’re all right. Let’s be SILLY together!We got our friend Zizek on the line with us! Hey, can you say marxist superstructure three times fast for us, GO! No he isn’t gonna be APPROPRIATED into the system like that… as another TOOL that can be easily absorbed and wielded around as a smart guy political |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-28|weapon. He has a quote where he says: "I like to occupy a position where even if I am attacked and rejected, I am not contaminated." His FEAR is NOT that the masses will REJECT him…his FEAR is that he is appropriated to the extent that he is ACCEPTED fully. He is a walking paradox…and he KNOWS it. He is a piece of artwork where you need to understand both the form AND the content to be able to capture the true meaning of what it is.And in a world where people fall into COMMON WAYS of symbolically interpreting things and grouping up…Slavoj Zizek REFUSES to see the world through these common lanes because he UNDERSTANDS how ubiquitous ideology truly is. This is WHY he points out SO many examples of IDEOLOGY in basically EVERY MEDIA TYPE. In movies, books, cartoons, music…THIS IS…the ideology that we’re internalizing everyday…and he wants to NOT ONLY SHOW people that it’s going on…but at a deeper level show how we can use DIFFERENT MEDIA, DIFFERENT SYMBOLS, to re-interpret social issues in a DIFFERENT WAY, that will allow us to SEE the issues more broadly. GREAT philosophers…when you look at the sources they read that INSPIRED them…some |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-29|of the most INTERESTING thinkers will have a lot of stuff that is OBSCURE…and NOT part of a typical western philosophical education. Simone Weil comes to mind of teaching herself Sanskrit so she could read the Bagavaghida. Or her Gnosticism or neo-Platonism. Walter Benjamin comes to mind with his mysticism or German Romanticism. If philosophy is a matter of thinking THOUGHTS that other people haven’t THOUGHT of before about the world…then one way to try to help yourself DO that…is to LOOK at reality through ideology and media that ISN’T the most COMMON ideology and media that people are falling into during your time. Of COURSE you’re gonna think just like everyone else if you do that. But try interpreting reality through a DIFFERENT…less PROBABLE ideological lens. It reminds me of the semi-recent episode we did on ChatGPT. Where when you ASK a Large Language Model a question…BECAUSE it is TRAINED on text data made up of conversations that people have ALREADY HAD…what it’s DOING is generating an answer made up of the most PROBABLE words that seem like they should FOLLOW based on all the other ANSWERS that it has seen in its training data. It produces conversation that LOOKS |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes-30|A LOT LIKE other conversations it has seen. And Chomsky would say that’s wonderful and all but we CAN’T RELY on this thing IN it’s current form to be something that’s going to give us anything that leads to PROGRESS. Scientific progress often doesn’t come from whatever scientists think is the most PROBABLE thing to come next in a scientific paradigm…but through highly IMPROBABLE theories that come from people questioning the ENTIRE ORDER of things.Well in a world with a LOT of people who believe in the same COMMON FORMS of ideology...in a world of highly PROBABLE interpretations of all the problems we’re dealing with…this is the highly IMPROBABLE take of Slavoj Zizek. Because philosophy to Zizek is not about coming up with the SOLUTIONS to the problems necessarily…it’s about getting people to ask the RIGHT questions, so that progress CAN be envisioned. We NEED people reinterpreting this historical moment, and finding a way OUT of the digital panopticon, that from WITHIN the COMMON ideological frameworks to some seems impossible. Now again, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And nobody ever understood Zizek in a day so there’s only so much we can cover on this episode. Lot of questions to answer…but |2024-02-26T15:11:08.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-jebes|196|Episode #196 - The Improbable Slavoj Zizek - Pt. 1
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-0|  So a question that’s worth ASKING of these Anarchists we’ve been talking about…you know the kind of anarchists that would say we’re be better off without the police, without laws, without a central authority with a military WARDING OFF other countries invading…a QUESTION a skeptic HAS to ASK these people…is if ALL these ideas of yours are so great…WHY in recent history EVERY time they’ve been tried…have they eventually FAILED?I mean, we mentioned the Seattle strike last time… the Ukrainians post WW1… the Spanish Civil War, and Peter Gelderloos in his book mentions DOZENS of OTHER moments in history with anarchist principles in action…but one common theme among ALL these examples is that they all ended up collapsing. What does an anarchist have to say about the fact that their track record isn’t exactly GREAT here. Well the ANSWER to that is that there’s specific reasons that EACH of them went south when they DID. Admittedly, sometimes it was a tactical error by the anarchists themselves. Other times like in the case of the Seattle Strike… sometimes things just reverted back to the way they were BEFORE there was a need for people to organize themselves. MOST of the |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-1|time though… in recent history, REGARDLESS of the SPECIFIC reasons each of these experiments ended you could say a MAJOR FACTOR is that there’s really just been a lack of solidarity with other anarchist societies. You could say that MANY of these examples from history would STILL be going on today if there just HAPPENED to have BEEN more international SUPPORT at the time for bottom up organization like this. In fact if the reason you’re even ASKING that question is because you’re actually interested in the viability of anarchism in the world we’re living in today…needs to be said: LOT of anarchists out there will say that FAR FROM anarchism being a strategy that’s been totally DEBUNKED…on the contrary, we’re in about as prime of territory as we ever HAVE been… for these IDEAS to catch fire. I mean, there’s certainly some promising things you could point to: how about the fact that 20 years ago… a lot of publishers wouldn’t even CONSIDER printing a book on anarchism…nowadays you got best SELLERS on anarchism…nowadays we’re TALKING about anarchism on a show like this…and you know short of a few emails… from people saying I must be huffing elmers glue to even |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-2|be COVERING something like anarchism…short of that, there’s really NOT as MUCH of a SOCIAL cost that people have to pay anymore for CONSIDERING these ideas.  ANOTHER promising thing that an anarchist might bring up…is that one of the biggest BARRIERS, FOR this bottom up, direct democracy style ever WORKING in the past…is that people have said that the level of  COMMUNICATION that’s required to MAKE something like this work…is just impossible. I mean fair question: how do you COORDINATE between this ever growing federated NETWORK of communities… that THEMSELVES are constantly changing shape?But some anarchists say in the world we’re living in NOW…the technological climate with web 3.0, DECENTRALIZED technology like blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital democracy platforms…these SORTS of things make the COMMUNICATION required for anarchism something FAR MORE FEASIBLE than it EVER has been before. So yeah, some anarchists think this is DEFINITELY a possible direction that things could be going in in the future…big question you gotta worry about if you’re THEM on the other SIDE of all this is…when this DOES take off as a set of ideas…exactly, what kind of anarchist do you wanna be?Because as we’ve mentioned at multiple points on this series so far…there’s many different |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-3|KINDS of anarchists…and not all of them LIKE each other. In fact ironically…there’s a bit of a turf dispute that’s been going on among anarchists in their ranks…the totally non-hierarchical, horizontal ranks that is of course. My friends, today I wanna tell you about the plight, the SAD situation… of a particular KIND of anarchist out there right now. It’s a type of person who THINKS of themselves as an anarchist…but most OTHER anarchists DON’T think of them as a REAL anarchist. Maybe you’ve heard of them…I’m talking about someone who calls themselves an anarcho-capitalist. If ALL the other anarchists are kind of like santa’s reindeer…you know not letting one of the reindeer play in all the reindeer games…THIS is rudolph the anarcho-capitalist. Really is EXCLUDED from the party sometimes.Reason BEING is the KIND of anarchist we’ve been talking about on this series so far, again the kind that doesn’t like the police, laws, private property…MANY of the people that think this way fall under the very BROAD category of what’s called anarcho-communism. And that would make THEM… anarcho-communists. And AS anarcho-communists…they don’t really LIKE anarcho-capitalists for MANY reasons we’ll elaborate on in this episode. For now though it’s JUST important |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-4|to say: try not to get TOO thrown off by these titles: communist and capitalist. Because as we’ll ALSO TALK about when it comes to the ANARCHO version of these two things… this is NOT your grandpa’s capitalism…and it’s not your grandma’s communism either for the record. Anarcho capitalists would CERTAINLY not be a fan of any of the capitalist systems that are going on today… and anarcho communists would CERTAINLY not be a fan of any of the communism that went on in the 20th century. I mean OBVIOUSLY. They’re anarchists, how COULD they be? They don’t believe in the legitimacy of the state…how could they EVER be a fan of the communism of the 20th century that was DOMINATED by a MASSIVE state and government. We’ll hear MORE from the anarcho-communist side of things here in a second…but FIRST: FEW questions gotta be answered at the start of this…what IS an anarcho capitalist, WHY would they CALL themselves that, and how EXACTLY do they DIFFER from other people who call themselves ANARCHISTS?And MAYBE the best place to start EXPLAINING that is to say that to an anarcho-capitalist…ONE of the ways that they’re different is that the TYPE of anarchist we’ve |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-5|been TALKING about on this series has a BIT of a problem that they haven’t really laid out a clear SOLUTION to yet. The PROBLEM is…once we REMOVE the GOVERNMENT from the equation…how EXACTLY… are we going to ORGANIZE society on the other SIDE of that? They’d say they HAVEN’T ANSWERED that. I mean they can talk about their DECENTRALIZED, HYPOTHETICAL ways that the world MIGHT be organized… in a totally DIFFERENT world once people’s values CHANGE into something where these things are possible…but THAT’S not really answering the question. Sure…if everyone was like ME then we wouldn’t need any laws. But look if we could guarantee that almost everyone is gonna have a set of values where they’re peaceful and hardworking, you can structure a society basically any way you WANT to. But how do we ACTUALLY HAVE what David Friedman calls a system of anonymous coordination among MILLIONS of PEOPLE… that ALL have different SUBJECTIVE takes on what is valuable? To an anarcho-capitalist…anarcho-communists have NOT GIVEN a sufficient ANSWER to that question yet. And the GOOD news to an anarcho capitalist like David Friedman…is that we already HAVE a system of coordination we know about that helps us efficiently distribute and |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-6|allocate resources, it’s a system that becomes a MIRROR for the VALUE that society is placing on things…it’s a self-regulating system that can meet EVERY NEED that a person may HAVE in a society and THAT is: the free market system combined with the wisdom of capitalism. That once we’re LIVING in this world where you’ve REMOVED the unnecessary hierarchy of the government…free markets are what we should be steering into and trying to make BETTER to PROVIDE the services that government USED to provide for people. Now you may recognize the name David Friedman…he is the SON of the world famous economist Milton Friedman god rest his soul. And Milton Friedman believed… that having a government was necessary. A SMALL government…a government that provides certain BASIC human services…national security, police, the enforcement of contracts…we NEED a society he thought where people feel SAFE enough…for something like a FREE MARKET to EVER truly be FREE. If everyone’s fearing for their life all the time then you can’t ever really have people feeling comfortable enough to make consumer choices.Point is: MOST THINGS he thought…are better off WITHOUT the government involved in them…but there ARE SOME BASIC things we BENEFIT from when a government |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-7|DOES them for us. Well, his son David just takes this one step further. It’s a BIT like that argument that an atheist will say to someone that believes in a religion. It’s like if there’s 1000 gods…BOTH of us don’t believe in 999 of them. I just take it one step further, don’t believe in ANY gods and think maybe you’re just doing the same thing you think all those OTHER people are doing. You apply this same kind of argument… to the government… and as David Friedman says just take the SMALLEST level of government that you can   possibly imagine where EVERYTHING ELSE is being fulfilled by the people themselves or the private sector…and then just take it one step further. In other words: police, enforcement of contracts, national security…have THESE things provided by the private sector as well!The THINKING is: that the private sector…is just generally BETTER at doing EVERYTHING…than the government is. You ever drive by a construction site…and it’s something you drive by every day so you just see the thing being built at every step along the way? You drive by and you wonder is that a government building they’re putting up? Is that a |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-8|new business coming to town? Well don’t think TOO hard…wait a few weeks and you’ll know EXACTLY what it is because if it’s a PRIVATE sector contract that building will be done in 2 months. If it’s a GOVERNMENT contract you’ll be driving by that same site two years from now…five dudes will be standing around in reflective vests…one dude will be shoveling dirt…the other four standing around ensuring that this is a safe operation that’s going on. And to an anarcho-capitalist…the REASON this happens…OBVIOUSLY… is that the government has a MONOPOLY on government. The government doesn’t have competition like a business does. The government isn’t gonna LOSE the JOB…they don’t have customers that are going to leave and go somewhere else if they aren’t happy. As Michael Malice says: what OTHER arrangement do we HAVE in society where you’re just LOCKED IN for four years or WHATEVER the term limit is…and if at ANY POINT you realize that this is a BAD SITUATION for you…you CAN’T decide to go elsewhere? WHEN is it ever LIKE that? WHEN would we ever PUT UP with something like that?Well we DO when it comes to the government. And THIS is part of the core |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-9|of anarcho-capitalism as a potential SOLUTION: they’d say that maybe NOT ALL HIERARCHIES…are a BAD thing. Maybe there ARE DEFINITELY hierarchies that are bad like… the involuntary, monopolistic control of the GOVERNMENT for sure…but isn’t it just STUPID to NOT consider that we have OTHER hierarchies… that are NOT monopolies… that are entirely VOLUNTARY for people to participate in? Things like capitalism. And wouldn’t it just be STUPID to THROW all of that out? Here’s what we can be certain of: There is NO SERVICE out there that has a monopoly at the HEAD of it…that is BETTER OFF for the customer than something WITHOUT a monopoly. So this is WHY the services that government has a monopoly on providing…are never really DONE that well…as Michael Malice puts it: this is WHY the police can shoot somebody in the streets…and the penalty is just to get a leave of absence and a pension. This is why you see people HIGH UP in politics…and the law just DOESN’T APPLY to them in the same way it does for people like you and me. Celebrities can literally KILL a person… face very little consequences. Look at the geopolitical decisions that are made with everyone’s |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-10|LIVES hanging in the balance. To an anarcho-capitalist like David Friedman…the politicians that are suggesting these SOLUTIONS to supposedly FIX our social problems…these are people who are ENTRENCHED in a system…that has HORRIBLE incentive structures. Think of what it’s like to be a politician often times…there’s some PROBLEM that faces us, SOCIALLY, we want to find a way to fix it. And the politicians who make the decisions can SUGGEST…ANYTHING they WANT…it costs them literally NOTHING to suggest anything, actually…spend a hundred billion dollars and build a koala sanctuary….and then AFTER their BRILLIANT suggestions…on the other side of it when people are DEALING with the BACKLASH of whatever POLICY it was that they put in place…THESE politicians often live FAR away from their constituencies in some gated community where they don’t bear any of the cost of the bad policy they supported. In other words to David Friedman…these people have no skin in the game. And the result for US as CITIZENS is that things get done that are USUALLY not as good for us as they could be. The GOVERNMENT…IS the problem here. In an anarcho-capitalist society based around free markets WITHOUT the government…to SUGGEST something as a potential SOLUTION to |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-11|a problem people are facing, like a koala sanctuary, that TAKES an initial INVESTMENT BY the person that’s suggesting it. More than that if their product or service FAILS to meet the needs of the consumers…THEY BEAR… THE NEGATIVE COST of that failed investment…NOT the taxpayer. People can talk about the woes of capitalism and what often happens in our current systems…but to an anarcho-capitalist what WE have is not capitalism…but CRONY capitalism. What WE have is some weird Frankenstein monster where GOVERNMENT’s embedded in free markets to the extent that they’re no longer free. Subsidies and Bailouts for CERTAIN companies over others. Not regulating CERTAIN companies the same way they regulate OTHER companies. Contracts and licenses EXCLUSIVELY given to certain companies with a better lobby.  But when you LET the free market TRULY be FREE…it has a very beautiful sort of self correcting mechanism built INTO it that’s DRIVEN by human behavior. Because when consumers engage in totally VOLUNTARY exchanges with each other…when two people agree to trade THIS good or service for THAT amount of money…that’s not just a TRADE that’s going on…to an anarcho-capitalist that’s more DEEPLY… a manifestation of individual preferences and consent. It is a STATEMENT about |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-12|what people subjectively VALUE in a society. And FROM that information…and through MANY of these voluntary transactions it not only becomes a SIGNAL we can read for how to efficiently allocate economic resources WITHOUT central planning. You know we DON’T need a team of people PLANNING OUT what our society should look like…on the contrary human BEHAVIOR will show us what society IS. NOT ONLY THAT…but this SPONTANEOUS order… that emerges out of a BUNCH of different voluntary exchanges between people…this can PRODUCE a NATURAL decentralization of power…to an anarcho-capitalist. When a company produces a good or service TRYING to meet the needs of the citizens…and then that company does a BAD JOB at it. UNLIKE when we rely on the monopoly of the government and there’s no CHOICE in the matter…people in an anarcho-capitalist society can just CHOOSE to not do business with them anymore. Then…the companies that are ACTUALLY MEETING the demands of the citizens will BE the ones that people naturally buy from. So to an anarcho-capitalist in a truly FREE MARKET…what would emerge is not a centralization of power, but A LOT of different parties holding power that’s more spread out because a LOT of different consumer choices would |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-13|be being made. Now COMBINE this vision… of there being no NEED for economic central planning…with a world where basic services like the police are provided by private companies as well. May seem a little strange to imagine at first, but it’s ACTUALLY not that far from what’s already being done. Michael Malice gives an example: think of a bar late at night. Can a BAR really, RELY on the monopoly security service provided by the government to resolve any conflict that may come up? No, so what do they do? They hire private security. And the RESULT of that is that EVERYONE… is safer for it. That BAR late at night becomes, ironically, a SAFER PLACE for you to BE…than something like a public park late at night that it’s the government’s job to police. So far from it being chaos… an anarcho-capitalist society could have an ABUNDANCE of security. A constant OVERLAP of one security detail over another. We could HANDLE disputes BETWEEN people the SAME way we ALREADY handle MOST disputes we have between each other in our private lives…that is PRIVATELY…without the government being involved. Now a natural question that comes up here is what happens when MY security guard |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-14|and YOUR security guard don’t AGREE on how we should be SECURING things. Do they do rock paper scissors? Do they both pepper spray each other at the exact same time?Well NO because this ENTIRE anarcho-capitalist society that I’m suggesting is FOUNDED upon an ethical principle first devised in this way by the philosopher Murray Rothbard. What’s known as the non-aggression principle.Murray Rothbard would want to stress that ANY organization in this society would NEED to be founded upon a principle of non-aggression...where each person, understanding how important it is to respect the natural rights and property rights of others, understanding that THAT’S what allows for a society to be able to function at ALL…in this world the VAST majority of people would agree… that initiating force against others is inherently wrong. That you can ARGUE with people…you can COMPLETELY disagree with how they live their life…you can hire private arbitration companies to MEDIATE a dispute between you and them…but there should NEVER be a situation where initiating FORCE against someone else or their property is SEEN as the correct course of action. And this obviously comes with everybody else having that SAME respect for you. But hold on a second: I |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-15|got a stupid question. What if people just say no? What if people just DON’T BELIEVE in this non-aggression principle of yours? You know that’s very INTERESTING Murray Rothbard…but I TOO have a principle…it’s MY OWN principle I came up with it’s called the AGGRESSION principle…where I just TAKE your stuff and beat you senseless in front of your family if you try to stop me. What happens when 10% of society doesn’t BELIEVE in the non-aggression principle?Well there’s answers to ALL these questions… MUCH like we’ve seen anarchist answers in the last three episodes of the show. Bottom line is: it TAKES imagining a world that’s structured in a very DIFFERENT WAY than our PRESENT world currently is. For example when it comes to people not going along with the non-aggression principle…you can IMAGINE the anarchist communities emerging of like-minded people we’ve been talking about. Well if there’s someone that DOESN’T respect the rights of others… they’re NOT going to be accepted into one of these communities of people that believe in non-aggression. And if they were to ever try to DISRESPECT the rights of one of those communities…they would be going against an entire COMMUNITY of people and whatever |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-16|security measures THEY had set up.  Anyway… it NEEDS to be said here…that I, personally, have come across VERY FEW SERIOUS anarcho-capitalists that TALK about this hypothetical world… as though it’s OBVIOUS that we should be doing this… and that the path to get there is simple. Nobody talks that way. They ALL pretty much acknowledge this transition is going to be a tricky one, that NOBODY has all the answers, and that LIKE anarcho-communism…it ultimately requires a pretty substantial SHIFT in the VALUES of the average person than what we have today. But that although the world CERTAINLY wouldn’t be problem-free on the other side of these changes…to an anarchist-capitalist: the INCENTIVE for CONSIDERING these ideas is just TOO great to ignore. That said: what would an anarcho-COMMUNIST have to say about this whole strategy? Why do they see anarcho-capitalists…as FAKE anarchists? To the point that SOME people say that the entire MOVEMENT of AnCap as its called…USES ANARCHISM in its name… to DELIBERATELY OBSCURE the STRENGTH of anarchism as a movement more broadly.Well the reason Ancaps are not REAL anarchists is because to a LOT of anarchists out there…the entire POINT of anarchism… is to REMOVE forced hierarchical authorities from |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-17|the way society’s organized. And to the Ancap’s point: there certainly ARE hierarchies out there that are pretty harmless: the rankings of sports teams comes to mind, rankings in games that people play…like when someone says I’m a level 37 woodsy, vegan blood elf emotionally conflicted…in this board game I’m playing…there’s PLACES where this stuff doesn’t HURT anyone…but to an anarcho-communist the hierarchies of Capitalism…is NOT one of those places.An anarcho-capitalist can talk all they WANT about how capitalism is VOLUNTARY…how if you don’t like it, simple, just don’t participate. But that’s a little bit like saying if you go to prison for forty years you don’t HAVE to join a gang. Just stand by your morals and deal with the CONSEQUENCES of that. To say that capitalism is VOLUNTARY is to IGNORE the REALITY of what it IS to be in a capitalist system. You know take the popular conservative intellectual position where you’re a FAN of capitalism and you say that Capitalism… is actually a BRILLIANT way to set things up…because it’s essentially forced morality. The thinking is look we’re trying to manage a society here…and there’s no GUARANTEE that ANYBODY gets off the couch and does ANYTHING to contribute |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-18|to this whole operation…so what Capitalism does is it forces people to either FIND SOME WAY to contribute a good or service that other people want…or else…ya STARVE to death. They’ll say this is a GOOD thing this is a way to GET people DOING the things we NEED people to do. Now, an anarchist would OBVIOUSLY see that as coercive and NOT how society should be set up. But they WOULD no doubt AGREE with the idea that the CHOICE that people really have is to either PARTICIPATE in the Capitalist system…or starve to death. But that’s not really a CHOICE…they would say. So this whole idea that this is all VOLUNTARY so it’s not really a hierarchy we gotta worry about… is just inaccurate. ANOTHER problem anarcho communists are gonna have with all this is that Capitalism…is NOT in fact a system that NATURALLY GRAVITATES towards a decentralization of power. The ENTIRE THING they’d say…is BUILT around an imbalance of power…you have a small handful of people who control the means of production and private property…and then the REST of society who WORKS for them, creates a SURPLUS of value with their LABOR, that the capitalist then TAKES and justifies |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-19|it as their PAYMENT for taking all that RISK to own the means of production. But then consider what ALWAYS seems to happen: THAT wealth is then used to acquire MORE wealth. Nothing wrong with that. And then THAT wealth is used to further dominate the market that the company is currently competing in. SQUEEZING out their competitors. This is what HAPPENS in a competitive system like capitalism.And then just keep following this domino effect into the future far enough until you arrive at the REALITY… of companies then USING their market dominance and abundance of resources to use MEDIA to influence consumer decisions…you know…what companies USUALLY do when they advertise.Again the capitalist CAN SAY all they want…that the market is self correcting...that when there’s a bad company people can just go shop somewhere else...but what happens… when we have something like what the MEDIA’S become in today’s world…where it’s GROWN into something SO POWERFUL that it’s capable of SHAPING the VERY PREFERENCES and PERCEPTIONS of the people that are MAKING these consumer choices. Is that liberty? Is that a free market where consumer choices are going to self-correct and GUIDE us to the right decisions?I mean right now… if you |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-20|take a look at the media and what it is, there are just a few MASSIVE corporations that control MOST of the media that people consume. Now CONSIDER that for a second. If there was THAT much centralized control over media in some OTHER area, say it was controlled by the government…we’d just call that a ministry of propaganda. But under capitalism…it’s just called good business. See that’s maybe the more GENERAL CRITIQUE here from an anarcho-communist to an anarcho capitalist…that the anarcho-capitalist has focused SO HARD on how dangerous the GOVERNMENT is as a hierarchy…that they’ve practically IGNORED all the OTHER GLARING EXAMPLES of hierarchies that are STARING them in the face…that are most of the time MORE dangerous than government. SO MANY THINGS we’ve mentioned on recent episodes since we’ve been covering modern day philosophy. An anarchist that’s TRULY committed to FINDING these in the world around them DOESN’T have to look too far. What are the things that REALLY have control over peoples lives– is it the government? Well yes, to an extent. And corporations like we’re talking about for sure! They’re often so powerful… that they control the government just through successful lobbying. How about financial institutions in particular, how |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-21|much power do THEY have when it comes to determining what’s possible? Again, how about the media? Is THAT something with power we have to worry about? Media has the power to control someone’s entire WORLDVIEW…it not ONLY gives them the information they use to construct a worldview…but then it ALSO gives them the OPINIONS they’re supposed to HAVE about it. How bout technology, our digital panopticon, and its INCREASING ability to lock people in little algorithmic CELLS that they can’t see out of? Or tech’s ability to run surveillance and keep a record on practically everything that you do. How bout our schools and universities that control what type of bias is going to be academically endorsed THIS particular decade? The SAME universities that control WHO gets tenure, WHO will be a thought leader in the coming years for us to look to for guidance. How bout religions or ideologies or how about examples of power that’s held over people SIMPLY because of their group identity?See we’re not LIVING in a world where government is the only form of power we have to worry about. In fact you COULD say that a NECESSARY skill for SURVIVAL in our modern world… |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-22|is being able to pay attention to all these different mechanisms of control as though they’re PREDATORS. Noam Chomsky says that what an anarcho capitalist is TRULY advocating… though they often don’t even realize it…is what will eventually become a pure corporate tyranny. It’s funny because it’s BASED on good intentions…as he says Ancaps say that freedom… is essentially people being able to do whatever they want. But their MISTAKE he thinks is that they’re not FULLY playing out the consequences of what they’re suggesting and he thinks that WHAT we will end up with…are companies who have “security services” that have transformed into armies. We’d have domination over the media and corporate monopolies and technology…and we’d HAVE these going on in a world…where we’d NO LONGER have a government to be able protect us from them. See this is WHY someone like Chomsky advocates for USING the power of the government that we STILL have… to REGULATE these OTHER forms of power. Let’s USE government to regulate technology, media, financial institutions, economic policy…and then once we get THESE things under control… THEN we can start having the BIGGER conversations about getting rid of the government and organizing things in a more |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-23|bottom up way. And that all SOUNDS really great in theory. Sometimes you need power to take out a more dangerous form of power. But to a LOT of anarchists INCLUDING Chomsky…THAT solution’s filled with a bunch of potential problems as well. Take for example the reality of how regulation CURRENTLY fails in today’s world. Governments ALREADY… TRY to REGULATE companies…but it’s not a coincidence that a lot of people in high ranking government positions USED to have high ranking positions in companies. It’s not a coincidence that K street and lobbyists are a thing. It’s not a coincidence that regulatory capture is something that commonly goes on…and so at the VERY least… this is all MUCH easier said than done. But then if we CAN’T rely on the GOVERNMENT as a tool to bring this stuff about…what SHOULD we be doing? It can be TEMPTING to think if companies are so powerful should we all just start a company, become a billionaire, buy a social media platform and start spreading the gospel?Well I guess that’s ONE way…but how about the REST of us who CAN’T do that? I mean anarchists throughout this series so far have CERTAINLY provided a LOT of reasonable |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-24|alternatives to MOST of these powerful institutions in society…for example instead of companies they might suggest worker co-ops. Instead of central banking they might support community lending. Instead of universities they might support alternative schooling or unschooling. And the list goes on. But as we’ve said before… to GET to the world where these sorts of anarchist alternatives can WORK…its gonna require DIFFERENT values and DIFFERENT social NORMS than what we currently have. And it can SEEM to SOME people on the outside LISTENING IN to these sorts of conversations that to even TALK about this hypothetical world of solutions without FIRST talking about HOW we’re actually going to CHANGE people’s values…it can come off to some people as disingenuous. Self indulgent. Like some anarchists are not CONCERNED with the real world as it IS…they’re just interested in having an overly intellectual discussion that should ONLY go on at an academic seminar as Chomsky says.But if you’re somebody looking at the state of the world and you want greater levels of liberty, equality and solidarity…there’s a point in these discussions where you gotta start talking about the real, actionable things that people can DO if they want to be on the |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-25|right side of that change. And what you’ll often HEAR from the REASONABLE people on this side that aren’t talking about a violent revolution…is the SAME sort of starting SMALL conversation that we already addressed on the Bookchin episode. That if you want to CHANGE people’s VALUES…start SMALL…start by just supporting critical thinking. Support after school programs and communities that try to FOSTER critical thinking about the world. Support ANY individual person you come across in your life that GENUINELY wants to learn more about SOCIAL issues. Support ANYONE who genuinely wants to develop that EMPATHY for the perspective of the other. Support ANY program that tries to make it a priority to CARE MORE about your fellow human beings around you… than they do about someone salsa dancing with their dog on a TikTok video. And I get it. I know all this can sound like I’m youth pastor Steve…oh wow! We’re gonna change the world one little smile at a time. And on that note there’s of course a much more cynical line someone could TAKE with all this discussion. Something an optimistic philosophy podcast like this…MAY have forgotten to ever consider…what if it’s too late? What if the society that |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-26|we’re talking about with ALL of its entrenched power structures and corruption…what if it’s too far gone to save? What if all these TACTICS to CHANGE THE VALUES of people are really just the death throes of a desperate person who WANTS to help SO BAD, but sadly is just wasting their time because no matter how much effort they put into it…people are just gonna KEEP doing what they do they’re gonna keep getting their spray tans, buying their butt implants, buying their shiny watches and shoes…THIS is what is going to MATTER to people UNTIL the ENTIRE ship finishes sinking and everything gets a reset. You could think that way…and you wouldn’t be the first person to become cynical about the way the world is, and give up. But cynicism is a drug. It numbs you to the pain that’s going on around you. It enables you to look at the things you care about that keep getting you to FEEL A certain way when you see them…and just put them off until tomorrow. And then tomorrow again. Cynicism… is a lot like other drugs where whenever you indulge in it a bit too much…you start to blame everyone |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-27|else for the reasons why you’re using it. Ironically…what someone from the outside may see as an anarchist delusion…that all we NEED for the WORLD to change is for everyone’s VALUES to change! Yeah! And how some people might see that as avoiding the real question. There’s ANOTHER way to interpret that whole line of thinking… which is that the individual values that people hold…at LEAST where we are now…they STILL DO HAVE a lot of POWER in DETERMINING how the world takes shape. Again, you can be CYNICAL about whether most people are going to get there…but the fact is: YOU still exist in a world where you’re making consumer choices. You ARE supporting CERTAIN causes over others. You ARE investing time. And even if it’s through a REFUSAL to consciously support anything…you STILL END UP supporting SOMETHING. And look, history is FILLED with examples of things that STARTED as small, grassroots movements, things that had FAILED before in the past many times… but then when the RIGHT sequence of events took place… people took small steps that collectively made a difference and people were left with greater levels of liberty equality and solidarity on the other side of it. And FORGET about |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-28|anarchism for a second…MOST people WANT greater levels of liberty equality and solidarity for people…WHATEVER that means to them. Most people would agree, anarchist or not, that if we’re imagining the world with the most liberty, equality and solidarity that makes sense…this world ain’t it. See, the fact is BOTH of these things could be true at once. It COULD be true that society is past the point of no return…AND it could be true at the same TIME…that there are TONS of examples from history where small movements catch fire and end up doing a lot of good. The question that MATTERS if you’re a person going through your daily life…is what sort of life do you want to live? Do you want to live a life of cynicism with no responsibility…which, can sound pretty good honestly…OR if the SHIP that you’re on is sinking… would you rather go out while at least putting up a fight?And when it comes to CONTEMPORARY philosophy…the CONVERSATIONS going on right now…this is ONE lens that you can start to understand it all through. You can take what can SEEM at FIRST like a TON of different, very FRAGMENTED goals that these philosophers have…and understand |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw-29|them ALL as different attempts to address these non-governmental POWER structures, so that the world may have even a LITTLE more liberty equality and solidarity…these are ALL people that are UNIFIED in the sense that they have decided that they’re not going down without a fight. Take thinkers like Martha Nussbaum or Michael Sandel…with their focus on civic ethics and political participation and liberty…take thinkers like Cornel West or Naomi Klein…focusing on intersectionality, bringing SOLIDARITY to a bunch of DIFFERENT groups that want greater social representation…groups that in the past have seen their causes as entirely separate. Take a thinker like Judith Butler, the ways that SHE’S supporting critical thinking as per our examples from before…and I guess finally…take ANOTHER person who’s supporting the cause of thinking critically about the ideologies that determine people’s thinking. He’s a man that MANY of you have no doubt heard of before. He’s a bit of a character in the best way possible. And while in the coming months on this podcast will talk about ALL these different thinkers we just mentioned…the ONE we’re going to talk about next…is Slavoj Zizek. And as it turns out…I recently heard from his people in my email…and they |2024-02-12T15:03:15.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-yehbw|195|Episode #195 - Could Anarcho-Capitalism be the solution to our problems? - Anarchism Pt. 4 (Rothbard, Friedman, Malice)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-0|  So back in episode 188 of this podcast… we started talking about the philosopher Byung Chul Han. He is a MODERN day philosopher…south Korean born. CLEARLY one of the favorites we’ve COVERED on this show as of late for his overall pessimistic outlook…that doesn’t really FEEL too pessimistic because it STILL leaves room for his love of gardening, of working with his hands, and quiet evenings at home of being a HANDSOME gentleman, whose rumored to be single playing his piano into all hours of the night. People love them some Byung Chul Han. ALL those things are TRUE by the way.But the POINT of bringing him up TODAY is that when we COVERED his philosophy in that episode if you recall he had a LOT to SAY… about the rise of NARCISSISM in modern society…narcissism was an important part of his analysis of what you see when you look OUT at the world… and you pay attention to how a lot of people are ACTING these days. He talked about how if you’re just BORN into the world AS it’s set up today…how you can be otherwise a totally GOOD person…no bad intentions…but just in practice you spend |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-1|very LITTLE time… actually caring or trying to understand the lives of people around you who are truly different from you. It really IS a modern sort of TRAP to fall into, he thinks. You’re born. You’re told you can be WHATEVER you WANT to be in this world, don’t let ANYBODY t ell you otherwise…and you’re told that AS you go ON about your day to day life… you gotta be as AUTHENTIC of a person as you possibly CAN be throughout that process…don’t worry too much about the haters if they try to get in your way. And with all this TIME people are savin not worrying about the haters…you know those pesky OTHER opinions out there…he says the NATURAL thing to do for people… is to just channel all that attention back to the ONLY place people REALLY have left to FOCUS…they channel it all back into focusing on THEMSELVES.  This often turns for the average person into a HYPER-FOCUS… on yourself. A heightened focus on your personal achievements and your career. A heightened focus on self IMPROVEMENT of ALL kinds. What could be wrong with that after all? IN this world where you are a personal BRAND and a |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-2|personal PRODUCT…why SHOULDN’T you be increasing your market VALUE in the corporate world, in the dating world, you have to COMPETE with all your fellow people. ON TOP of all that….You’re a MEDICAL project to be optimized by doctors…you’re a psychological project where there’s ALWAYS something to be improving. Self GROWTH. Self CARE. Self LOVE. These are SACRED CONCEPTS that you can NEVER question…and you know, if there’s ANYTHING that feels like it’s MISSING from your life, if something feels OFF to you…in the modern world: it’s PROBABLY… that you’re just not focusing on yourself ENOUGH. You know it COULDN’T be…that you’re TOO focused on yourself…that you lack any SEMBLANCE of a meaningful connection with a community that you’re participating in. With people you ACTUALLY know…issues you ACTUALLY care about that directly IMPACT you, ideas from other people that are truly DIFFERENT from yours. Couldn’t be THAT. Could it?But then again on the other hand…to BE fair to the average person LIVING today…what are you really supposed to DO? You’re a PRODUCT of the world you’re BORN into. It’s not like the way the WORLD is set up makes it EASY to have meaningful connections with a community. Which is why a lot |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-3|of the books that Byung Chul Han has WRITTEN over the years focus on how the THINGS that bind and CONNECT people together are slowly disappearing from the world… and how technology, with things like the digital panopticon, just seems to be amplifying the speed of us being socially isolated from each other. This is what we talked about in episode 189 of this podcast. It’s a grim picture… if you buy what Byung Chul Han is saying. You know Nietzsche famously declared… at the end of the 19th century that God is dead. And one of the key points he’s making when he says that is that this clever invention of religion by human beings that HISTORICALLY has offered people a ready made STORY that GIVES them an easy identity, meaning to their life, moral code to follow…Nietzsche says that with ALL the advances in the sciences that are going on…again, just GIVEN the way the world is SET UP for the average person being BORN into it…it’s not IMPOSSIBLE for someone to find a way to believe in a religion…but for a thinking person it becomes a MUCH more difficult thing than it USED to be. And he predicts |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-4|this will lead to a severe CRISIS IN those areas that religion used to provide for people identity, meaning, moral confusion, etc. Well in a SIMILAR sort of way…could we say that what Byung Chul Han is saying is not God is dead but something more along the lines of: Community is dead. And we have killed it.Has it become just, DIFFICULT… for someone to simply FIND a community to be able to participate in? Is that why we create these little narcissistic communities of one with ourselves? You know at the END of reading Byung Chul Han if you were expecting some sort of SOLUTION from him for how we’re going to ALTER the society people are raised in, CHANGE their values…when you’re told by him to just…live the contemplative life and go work with your hands in your GARDEN go plant some zuchinnis…to sit and think REALLY REALLY hard about the perspective of the OTHER…there’s a sense in which yeah that’s fine if it’s just ME. But how does that in ANY way get us CLOSER to escaping this digital panopticon as a society? Well here’s ANARCHISM, in THIS series coming along and saying hey, Han. I SEE the problems you’re |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-5|TALKING about in the world. And in MY opinion… the MAJORITY of this is ONLY gonna be solved by fundamentally changing the way that human beings RELATE to each other into something that DOESN’T involve forced hierarchical authority. THAT’S the way this actually happens.That JUST LIKE Bookchin talked about LAST episode…that when it comes to the environment…you can try to treat just the SYMPTOMS of what is going on…you can pick up some trash, you can BAN plastic packaging but it does nothing to solve the fundamental social issues that CAUSE those problems in the first place, JUST like that… you can TALK… about the SYMPTOMS of the way that society is currently set up…you can talk about mental illness. You can talk about addiction. You can talk about a lack of focus on the family unit or community. You can talk about poverty and racism and gun violence but as it’s been SAID BEFORE and NOT JUST by Anarchists…if you REALLY wanted to FIX these problems, if you REALLY wanted to fix GUN violence for instance… you gotta eventually ask the DEEPER question of why do we have a society…where so many people want to kill each other in |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-6|the first place? What is it ABOUT the way things are currently set up…that seems to RELIABLY lead to abuse…of SO MANY different types?Well it’s a FUNNY THING about abuse…you don’t typically have an ongoing abusive relationship with someone who sees you as an EQUAL. No, when parents abuse their kids…it’s because they think at some level that CHILDREN are inferior to them…you are to be seen and not heard if you’re a child , you speak up and you’re gonna get smacked. When people abuse their spouses, domestic violence, or abuse of an ethnic group or abuse against a particular sexual orientation…THESE THINGS HAPPEN because these people are seen by the abuser as LESS than them. In other words to an anarchist: it’s all CENTERED…around this deeply embedded notion of HIERARCHY that people commonly use to understand their reality.  But maybe if society was organized differently it would PRODUCE people with different values. And maybe if we had more people with different VALUES…we’d see LESS of the type of behavior that makes people so pessimistic about the future. Point is: we HAVE to be able to IMAGINE a DIFFERENT WAY that the world might be organized in the future, and |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-7|maybe Anarchism is the way to GET us there.Now for every ONE of these people on the anarchist side of things that wants to IMAGINE a better world…there are MORE people on the other side that are SKEPTICAL of this whole grand strategy of theirs. Because from ANOTHER perspective that’s pretty common today… removing forced hierarchical authority…totally RESTRUCTURING the way we organize everything…that just sounds… INCREDIBLY naive. I mean, among other things it’s a COMPLETE DENIAL…of SO many of the PROBLEMS that ALWAYS arise when you’re trying to organize large numbers of people even in the BEST of circumstances. A person on THIS side of the argument might say how about one of the most OBVIOUS examples of this… what we KNOW to be true… about human nature. They might say are you REALLY, as an anarchist, going to sit there in your little Anarchist PTA meetings and DENY the fact that this whole EXPERIMENT that we’re running here, called civilization…is NOT a guarantee. The SAFETY you experience day to day is not a GUARANTEE…there is a thin VEIL of civility… that lies between people getting along great on one day…and CHAOS on the NEXT day.AS we’ve SEEN… when government systems have |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-8|collapsed in the past…it is just HUMAN NATURE to be selfish, and greedy, independent, VIOLENT if we HAVE to be. How can you NOT EXPECT that EXACT SAME THING to HAPPEN en masse, once this anarchist society of yours is put in place and there’s no CENTRAL authority to hold people accountable? There are actually SERIOUS… anarchists… out there who are saying…that society would be BETTER OFF as a WHOLE…WITHOUT things like the police. And JUST… by SAYING that…to a person on THIS side of the argument: you INSTANTLY show your hand as someone who’s NEVER ACTUALLY lived in a bad neighborhood. You’ve never actually witnessed first hand the EVIL that people are capable of EVEN when they’re NOT desperate. You know it’s not a COINCIDENCE you probably grew up in a middle class neighborhood, had the luxury of going to some liberal arts college and LEARN about all these ideas…no you just sit there on the internet with a totally PRIVILEGED view on how much we can sweet talk this PRIMAL nature of people away. But what do you DO when BAD people with BAD intentions show up on your doorstep and there’s no one to call to come SAVE you? |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-9|That’s the REALITY of the world.Now an anarchist might HEAR this…stand up…start to clap very slowly…and say uh congratulations. You my skeptical friend have officially achieved the HIGHEST level of BRAINWASHING that’s possible by the state to make you think that the people around you are all psychopaths… and that you’re HOPELESS without the state being there to keep you safe. You’ve been promoted. You are now a lieutenant colonel in the army of morons. Congratulations. Because there are Anarchists out there like Peter Gelderloos…he’s the author of a GREAT book called Anarchy Works…where the goal of the book is TWO fold. It’s ONE…designed to answer some COMMON QUESTIONS about how an anarchist society could EVER work in practice…and TWO…it gives DOZENS of examples throughout history… of moments where, as HE puts it: people have in different ways at different times demonstrated mutual aid, self-organization, autonomy, and horizontal decision making whether they called themselves anarchists or not. And to the skeptic…who thinks the world couldn’t POSSIBLY function without some sort of central POLICE force in place to FIND and punish all the criminals…he might start by saying that FIRST of all…let’s take a closer look at what’s going on in the modern |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-10|world and understand WHAT it is that the police are actually DOING. Let’s try to ANSWER that. What do the police do?Well in ONE sense…there’s a very SIMPLE answer to that question: OBVIOUSLY…police enforce the LAWS. But what are LAWS? LAWS…are just RULES for your behavior, handed down by people in positions of central authority. You don’t FOLLOW the rules. You’ve now committed a crime. You commit a crime now you’re a criminal. And CRIMINALS are locked inside of a concrete cell so we can keep people SAFE from them. And that SOUNDS great…on paper…until you CONSIDER the fact that once you PUT laws, ON PAPER…they become CODIFIED into something that can be enforced based on the LETTER of the law… rather than the SPIRIT of the law. In other words to Peter Gelderloos: it often DOESN’T even matter if ANYONE is currently getting HURT by someone’s behavior…the police ALWAYS have a LIST of predetermined codified reasons to ENFORCE social order EVEN when it’s not necessary.To SEE this in your OWN life: think about what it’s like if you’re someone who drives…when you’re driving down the road…and you look into your rearview mirror and there’s a cop behind you…is there ANY part of |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-11|you…that feels SAFE…and THANKFUL that the cop is there? Like thank god officer friendly’s here to patrol the streets and keep everything so GREAT for me. No…you think omg am I doing anything wrong? Uh, I’m gonna keep my hands at 10 and 2…I’m gonna signal 800 feet before my turn. I’m gonna be a GOOD little boy so this cop doesn’t pull me over and take their day out on me.Now is THAT a reaction you have to an institution in society that’s just KEEPING everybody safe…just RESPONDING to the needs of the public…or is that your reaction to a situation where there’s policing going on that is CLEARLY… enforcement for ENFORCEMENT’S sake? But WHY…would the police ever DO that if their JOB is just to protect and serve people? It doesn’t make any sense!Well it doesn’t make SENSE from THAT perspective…but it starts to MAKE PERFECT sense if you remember from episode one of this series: that an anarchist is NOT thinking about the state or ANY central authority as though its some ethereal concept like the will of the people or to protect and serve…a central authority like the police…these are just PEOPLE. People who are given positions |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-12|of POWER… where it’s THEIR responsibility to constantly JUSTIFY that power. The WAY you gotta think about it as Peter Gelderloos puts it is that: “The state is a mafia that has won control over society, and the law is the codification of everything they’ve stolen from us.”The law is a way to codify and legitimize the CONTROL that the state has over individuals. So yes, the police enforce the laws…but CONSIDER the fact that LAWS are DISPROPORTIONATELY applied to CERTAIN communities rather than others. CONSIDER the fact that SPECIFIC laws have been put on the books just to allow for police to enforce the law MORE in certain lower-income areas. Consider the us vs them dynamic that often EMERGES from this kind of setup. Could it be that the presence of the police in this disproportionate way… just PRESERVES social inequalities, makes it so we DON’T have to know our neighbors, could it be that it spreads fear and resentment amongst people, or even alienate entire communities? Do the police… just STRENGTHEN social division? To Peter Gelderloos, the police do not EXIST because crime is RAMPANT… and that the world would be pandemonium in the streets WITHOUT them. He says |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-13|police…often get a lot of hype in the media and movies as being these superheros. But through NO fault of their own…the REAL reason police are here…the REALITY of it is that they are a TACTICAL arm of the STATE…to be able to maintain the state’s monopoly on VIOLENCE…and CONFLICT resolution. The state don’t want ANYBODY OTHER THAN THEM able to DO either of those two things. The FACT is: within self-governing communities of people who KNOW each other… it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE to resolve conflicts on your OWN…WITHOUT some sort of militarized enforcement body of the police. It’s been done ALL THROUGHOUT human history IN MOST societies since we were hunter gatherer tribes.But the STATE…doesn’t want you to KNOW THAT…they WANT you to feel SCARED of your neighbor…they want you to believe that the ONLY WAY we can EVER resolve CONFLICT is THROUGH the medium of the state and it’s various legal appendages. Think of a COMMON STORY you hear in today’s world…someone’s living in a neighborhood or an apartment building…they put their kids to bed…the people next door are having a party and they’re playing really loud music. Now HOW common is it…for someone in this situation to be MORE WILLING |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-14|to CALL the POLICE on their NEIGHBOR...who then KNOCK on their neighbor’s door to tell them to turn their music down…than to just go over, talk to their neighbor, hey kids are going to bed can you turn it down a bit, and RESOLVE the situation themselves? Not a lot of people feel comfortable DOING that…and can you BLAME…them for not wanting to ask their neighbor? HERE’S something to consider: Imagine YOURSELF in that situation. And imagine the PERSON living next door to you is a FRIEND of yours, cool person. You KNOW they’re not gonna hurt you. They CARE about their relationship with your family. Well would you call the police on your friend instead of going over and talking to them. Of COURSE not. In fact at almost EVERY point in human history BEFORE this if you’re living NEXT DOOR to someone and they’re having a party…you’re most likely INVITED to that party. But in the SPECIFIC setup of TODAY’S world where social BONDS are so hard to achieve…again the world where Byung Chul Han says everything that binds and connects us is disappearing…you’re likely NOT invited to that party in THIS world. And in what would OTHERWISE be your |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-15|local community in basically every other era of human history…in TODAY’S world…talking to your NEIGHBOR is something that has to be OUTSOURCED to the police. As MANY anarchist philosophers have aptly pointed out…in a society where social BONDS between people are weaker…that society will OFTEN turn towards things like increased police presence… and increased SURVEILLANCE…just to be able to organize social interactions. And in the right climate of technology…you MIGHT even see this type of society ALSO start gravitate towards something like a digital panopticon. But let’s…slow DOWN here with all we’ve been talking about. Because the SKEPTIC of anarchism PROBABLY has a bit of a response to give here. Before we get TOO far into this PICTURE of a fantasy world where everyone is holding hands…I gotta say you’ve done a REAL GOOD JOB so far of avoiding the REALITY of the world that I talked about before. I mean, sure…maybe police wouldn’t have to EXIST in a world where the biggest PROBLEMS we face…are you telling your neighbor to turn down the volume on who let the dogs out. But how about the ACTUAL world we live in…you know the one with murder, rape, human trafficking. What about dealing with people |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-16|with severe mental illnesses? What about organized crime of a scope and level of complexity that it takes a SPECIALIST to be able to DEAL with PROPERLY…you know somebody who works with this type of crime every day. I mean are there ACTUALLY…REAL WORLD EXAMPLES of communities where the police cease to function, and then ORDINARY PEOPLE step up and do JUST as good of a job as the POLICE were doing before?An anarchist like Peter Gelderloos might reply by saying not ONLY have situations like that HAPPENED throughout history…but there’s REASON to believe that in SOME areas…having MEMBERS of a COMMUNITY resolve their own conflicts may actually work BETTER. For example…take the events that went down in February of the year 1919 in the city of Seattle, Washington. What’s become famously known at THIS point… as the Seattle General Strike. Now a General Strike… is a particular KIND of strike where workers from a LOT of different industries ALL gather together and WALK out of their jobs in solidarity to demand any number of things, higher pay, better working conditions, employee benefits, you get it. So in Seattle, in 1919 in particular…what was going ON was cost of LIVING was going |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-17|up after WW1…wages weren’t going up along with it…and the people decided to take things into their OWN hands and organize a strike. Now…just to put this into perspective… we’re NOT talking about a strike…where there’s a couple hundred people outside in the rain waving signs around…in the Seattle GENERAL Strike…this was close to 70,000 people. And what HAPPENS when a strike is THAT BIG…is that the entire CITY starts to shut down. When you DON’T have longshoremen taking resources in, or transportation to move all the stuff around, or medical services or garbage collection, or ANY of the CRUCIAL things a city needs…local government can’t just FIND a way to REPLACE these things overnight. So instead of allowing basic services to fail and for untold amounts of suffering to go on…the workers and the labor unions that were striking realized…their problem isn’t with the PEOPLE of the city of Seattle. Their problem was with their employers. So the WORKERS were going to organize a bottom up, community driven effort to KEEP the city functioning while the workers were on strike. The TYPE of bottom up organization that we’ve mentioned in the last couple episodes. What the workers quickly realized after taking over |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-18|the city was that regardless of whether there were managers or governors there to put their fingerprints on everything…they were totally capable of keeping the city running. In fact what they REALIZED…is that they were ALWAYS the thing that kept the city running. It’s almost like when a company buys another company and the new company comes in and realizes that workers don’t need a bunch of bosses LORDING over their work all the time, micromanaging, that the workers can usually do things better on their own. That’s kind of what happened here. They maintained public services, they started public cafeterias to get food out to anyone who needed it… and ALL of this, to some of the people who witnessed it and wrote about it: this started to foster a mutual FEELING amongst the people of community. The people started to feel a PART of the city…in a way they hadn’t before. They felt RESPONSIBLE for the city. Now the BIG question here is what happened without the police? Did the world inevitably descend into chaos? Well no…turns out people were MUCH more interested in working TOGETHER than burning the city down and ransacking each other’s lives. Same way it’s been |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-19|for MOST of human history by the way. Same way  if we didn’t have the police tomorrow…I wouldn’t magically go to my 80 year old next door neighbor and start stealing doilies off her kitchen table. But what HAPPENED? Well, WHEN conflicts INEVITABLY AROSE in Seattle…the temporary council made up of representatives from all the different unions appointed volunteer people, ALL of whom CARED DEEPLY about the safety of their community…and THEIR job when a CONFLICT arose was to go down to where it was happening… and under a STRICT policy of non-violence…they would TRY to de-escalate the situation. They did this with all SORTS of conflicts between people violent both AND non-violent, it was a NEEDS BASED APPROACH…to CONFLICT resolution. And far FROM things descending into CHAOS…the whole operation supposedly went VERY well. Turns out with nobody starving because of the public cafeterias, with the increased feeling of solidarity among the people feeling a mutual responsibility for the management of their city…turns out under CERTAIN circumstances… people are much more INTERDEPENDENT than they are INDEPENDENT, they value cooperation over constant competition with each other, and they can handle things themselves like ADULTS through delegation… rather than ALWAYS needing some sort of |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-20|authority figure LORDING OVER them and making decisions. You know again, the way social organization has happened for MOST of human history. But the skeptic of anarchism can say back to this: OKAY, so then WHY…are murder and rape and other horrific crimes such a thing then in the world WE live in? If people ARE CAPABLE of BEING this way…then why AREN’T they? We have a lot of this stuff going on EVEN in a society WITH a militarized POLICE force, you think REMOVING consequences like that is going to make this situation BETTER?Well an anarchist might reply by saying… that understanding the REASONS people DO horrific things to each other can be pretty complex. Let’s take it one at a time: take murder for instance. You asked why is it a thing. Well, let’s look at the statistics and figure out WHY people commit the murders they do. MANY of the situations people FIND themselves in where they’re committing these murders say in a gang or out of desperation…ULTIMATELY are caused by socio-economic factors DRIVEN by the SPECIFIC STRUCTURE of the hierarchical system that we’re living in. If it’s not that how about the GLORIFICATION of VIOLENCE in the media. How |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-21|about the lack of FOCUS on the family unit, or the community or having ANY sort of meaningful connection with the people around you. How bout the increasing rates of mental illness. The increasing rates of drug addiction. You know, Murray Bookchin had a quote one time where he was describing the EFFECTS our society HAS on the psychology of the people living in it…and he said something to the effect of you lock people in solitary confinement long enough…and EVENTUALLY they start to go crazy. IF the skeptic of anarchism is WORRIED about what would happen if we UNLEASHED people that are raised in this society with no BARRIER of the POLICE between them and their neighbors…how much of the CRIME that they’re worried about happening…is caused by SOMETHING deep down in our human NATURE…and how much of it is BECAUSE of how the world is structured? The HISTORY of the world PROVES… to some people, that the current setup has PRODUCED this situation… and that if we CHANGE the values we prioritize in culture… we will CHANGE our situation. To THIS the skeptic might just say…fine. Let’s not argue about human nature anymore. I’m done trying to convince you that |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-22|the people AROUND you can be a threat to your existence…and to be fair to your position: maybe you CAN just TALK to everyone and make peace with most people…WITHIN your own COMMUNITY. But that’s the THING about what you just said: it’s JUST…IN your own COMMUNITY. What happens though…when OTHER communities of people start to threaten YOURS from the outside? What do you do then as an anarchist? Do you call campus security? Tell them they’re all fascist? How about the most EXTREME version of this…what HAPPENS when something like a GLOBAL SUPERPOWER decides that they don’t really CARE about your bottom up organizational methods…they just want to take over and OCCUPY the territory you’re on, FORCING their culture upon you? What do you do then?Well COUPLE things need to be said to answer this: FIRST thing… is that it’s pretty WIDELY accepted by anarchists that you can NEVER be TOTALLY safe from imperialistic threats from the outside. Basically EVERY society, anarchist or not, is gonna have to deal with other societies that try to threaten it. That’s just a fact of the world unless if literally EVERYBODY was not an imperialist. The SECOND thing that needs to be said is that |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-23|if coming INTO this question…if your overall military strategy …is just to be the biggest, baddest military on planet earth that NO other country can compete with in a full on, frontal conflict…if you’ve accepted that as your CHIEF GOAL...then there’s no way ANYONE will EVER be able to convince you of alternative options.You’re GONNA NEED TRILLIONS of dollars in taxpayer resources and a powerful central authority to continue to IMPOSE that military presence on the rest of the world…at THAT point you become kind of like the POLICE of the entire world, unsurprisingly to an anarchist doing what states and unregulated capitalism ALWAYS does: they always seek MORE control over MORE resources… until they run into an inevitable war or conflict. But an anarchist like Peter Gelderloos might point out… that there are WEAKNESSES to having that big of a military and global presence. Several examples: for one it is an INCREDIBLY expensive thing to maintain…which then makes it incredibly EASY to get overextended if you’re spread out across a global campaign. Another weakness is that the soldiers in a global campaign like that are often fighting because they have to obey orders… rather than fighting for some inspired CAUSE |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-24|that may improve their resolve. Another weakness is that the bureaucracy of government can often times make decision making slow. Chain of command ITSELF is something that’s pretty fragile. Soldiers at the lowest ranks often aren’t filled IN on all the strategic objectives going on…so if the enemy TARGETS the people at the top… it can lead to chaos or CONFUSION in the lower ranks. I mean he’s just saying: it’s not all sunshine and rainbows to be the global superpower there’s strengths and weaknesses to EVERY position. Now CONTRAST this setup…with a more ANARCHIST military setup…which WOULDN’T involve the HIERARCHICAL structure of something like a traditional military UNIT…instead of UNITS…anarchists form something more like a MILITIA. Now what’s the DIFFERENCE between the two? Well there are many! But typically in the anarchist setting MILITIAS are things that start to resemble the voluntary communities we’ve talked about in the last two episodes. Militias… are horizontally organized by VOLUNTARY MEMBERS that decide to join and stay, they often can LEAVE at any time. When the militia needs a leader for combat organization…leadership is appointed AS NEEDED by taking a vote from the members.  So there’s no rigid chain of command. Which not only makes |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-25|each MILITIA MEMBER more COMPETENT in their ability to fight without LEADERSHIP constantly having to give them orders…but it ALSO makes the militia as a WHOLE more ADAPTIVE than military units possibly CAN be. BECAUSE an anarchist militia is NOT just one part of a BATTALION that’s all executing some LARGER war game that’s going on at the TOP of a chain of command…militias are capable of defending the LAND that they know the best… the LAND that they CARE about the most…and DOING so in a way where they are FLUIDLY MOVING from guerilla style tactics to more FRONTAL style assaults in coalition with OTHER militia units… SHOULD their objectives align. As you PROBABLY saw coming JUST like in the communities we talked about in the other episodes…where these communities can talk to each other make arrangements and form confederacies…the SAME thing would go on at a MILITARY level as well…SHOULD an imperialistic threat like this ever emerge. So to answer the question of the skeptic from before of what happens if a global superpower wants to INVADE you…the goal would NOT be to try to meet them in battle head on…that’s just STUPID. But instead to STEER into the different STRENGTHS |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-26|of militias as fighting units…to use tactics that have been used against OTHER global powers EFFECTIVELY all throughout history. Think of the American Revolution. Did the American rebels want to meet the English in the middle of a field musket to musket? Alright, I shot at thee. Now its your turn to shoot at ME dear boy. I’ll wait…four or five minutes for you to reload. No moving though that’s CHEATING!No, it’s like they leaned into their strengths they used guerilla tactics, they cut off supply lines, they attacked garrisons ran away. THESE ARE THE TYPES of TACTICS… that are by the way the SPECIALTY of a highly mobile, adaptable militia… that can TRULY WHITTLE AWAY at an over extended global superpower. And THINK of how this has been done with global powers occupying countries in the last 50-100 years. Peter Gelderloos in his book talks about the Ukrainians after the end of WW1 and their anarchist militias being HIGHLY successful against the white army and the soviets despite being HEAVILY outnumbered and outgunned. Or how about the Spanish Civil War and the militia style combat that succeeded there against the fascists...or many OTHER insurgencies from recent history that have had success?Now |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-27|HEARING this…the skeptic of anarchism here MIGHT just say…okay. What I’ve learned from you here today my anarchist friend… is that there is no question about the security of a society that I can ask you… that you don’t have an answer as to how ANARCHISM might deal with that problem in a different sort of world. And I LIKE the SOUND of your world by the way for what it’s worth… I LIKE the idea of knowing all my neighbors, being CONNECTED to the community around me, physically, myself helping to PARTICIPATE and MAINTAIN the community of people I live in. I love the SOUND of that…but even if we ACCEPT EVERYTHING about this hypothetical world that you’re painting, that things COULD WORK if only we GOT people to a place where they UNDERSTOOD all this stuff and HAD these sorts of VALUES…I FEEL like it’s just necessary to ALSO say that EVEN IF WE ACCEPT THAT…we’re NOT, quite…there…yet. It’s just not FEASIBLE right now…GIVEN where people actually ARE in their views of the world. WE DO live in the society that Byung Chul Han talks about. We DO lack social bonds. And if you DID implement this stuff overnight we |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-28|WOULD have SOME kind of chaos that NOBODY wants to see. BIG fan of the conversation though. SAY what you want about opening people’s minds up to alternative ways things can be set up. And I can AGREE with the anarchist POINT that greater levels of liberty, equality and solidarity…that these are ALL part of a larger HUMAN tendency that TRANSCENDS anarchism to DESIRE these things whenever its actually possible. But again BECAUSE it is AT PRESENT something that’s so infeasible to just IMPLEMENT…it ALMOST starts to seem like Anarchism is LESS of an actual POLITICAL philosophy…and it starts to seem MORE like it’s an ETHICAL philosophy for individuals to apply to their lives. Maybe anarchism is a set of ideas you bring when you’re raising a family, or starting a company. Maybe you encourage this horizontal decision making and mutual aid whenever you can actually effect something…and then maybe eventually through enough generations we will actually GET to the type of world an anarchist is describing. But that that HAS to take time. It HAS to come about at a pace that corresponds with culture, or else to the skeptic, again: you’re just NAIVE if you expect anything OTHER than a |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2-29|violent bloody revolution to bring it about. The anarchist could say back to that look, you can call me naive for IMAGINING an ALTERNATIVE way that things might be organized. But I could call you naive back for being someone who FAILS to recognize… that SOMETIMES these LEAPS forward when it comes to how ETHICAL we’re being in the way we organize things…HAVE to COME when a considerable portion of the people in a given culture… can’t IMAGINE the world in any other way. Think of the slave economies in the southern United States in the 17 and 1800’s. It was UNETHICAL to run an economy based on slave labor. Many people wondered how you could EVER run an economy WITHOUT something like slave labor. But then they DID… because it was the right thing to do. You know there have been MANY moments all throughout history where people thought that organizing the world in a more bottom up way was impossible and yet they FOUND a way to do it anyway. To the anarchist we are IN a situation here that is kind of like that. Because in the immortal words of Murray Bookchin when we’re FACED with a CHALLENGE like this |2024-01-29T18:24:34.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-pj5c2|194|Episode #194 - Do we really need the police? - Anarchism Pt. 3 (Gelderloos, Security)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-0|  So last episode was a bit of a challenge to be able to write. There was a lot of stuff that needed to get TALKED about. Lot of CORE ideas from anarchist thought that needed to be explained…to be respectful to the people who came to the episode not knowing ANYTHING about anarchism yet. But we had to TALK about those core ideas…without, saying too much about anarchism in GENERAL…because whenever you say ANYTHING about anarchism a beacon goes up into the sky, anarchists start crawling out of the trees, and no matter what it is there’s always some anarchist somewhere in the world that’ll disagree with it and yet STILL is considered to be an anarchist under the anarchist banner. Lucky for me: I can start talking about INDIVIDUAL thinkers today. Also kind of lucky for me is the fact that the philosopher we’re talking about today didn’t get too caught UP on labels like anarchism…seemed a bit silly to him to do that…he just wanted to make sure the substance of the ideas was there. But as though I learn nothing in my life…as though I really AM top five dumbest people on planet earth I’m going to |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-1|try it again, at least here at the beginning of the episode. Because to anyone coming to this podcast today in good faith…you know, you’re ACTUALLY TRYING to learn MORE about anarchism as a political philosophy, place it in the greater historical context of what you ALREADY know…I PERSONALLY think IF you’re doing that… that taking a step back… and looking at anarchism from more of a panoramic view, is helpful…because I think it sets us up for the rest of this episode… where we’re going to see EXACTLY HOW… an anarchist perspective can start to look…when it’s DIRECTLY applied to what MANY consider to be one of the biggest issues facing the human species today. What I mean is: you know it’s been said that if the world we live in today CEASES to exist somehow. Like if you could get in a time machine and go into the future 500 years, you arrive in that world, you look around you and it is OBVIOUS that civilization has collapsed at some point between now and then…if you FOUND yourself in that spot there are a few things going on in 2024… that could have been RESPONSIBLE for that collapse. Nuclear proliferation. Our |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-2|toxic relationship with the natural world. Various forms of social unrest we got fascism, mental illness, addiction, socio-economic turmoil, religious fighting of any type not the LEAST of which are the political religions people are a part of, the list goes on but the POINT is that an anarchist might ask the question…are these all completely separate phenomena that are all TOTALLY unrelated to each other? Or might there be something more fundamental that going on…where all of these things are just different SYMPTOMS…of the same SICKNESS that has overcome society? What they’d be alluding to is what if our BLIND acceptance of involuntary hierarchical authority, our OBSESSION with CONSTANTLY looking at EVERYTHING AROUND us in terms of superiority and inferiority…what if that was directly responsible for a lot of these problems? Or ALL of these problems?The philosopher we’re talking about today is Murray Bookchin…and while he’s considered by  many to be one of the GREATEST anarchist thinkers of the recent past…he, himself, again didn’t get too caught up on the label of anarchist. In fact anarchism, as far as HE saw it…was not some recent breakthrough in political philosophy, you know some radical, entirely new set of ideas. To him |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-3|what people in the modern world often call anarchism is really just the natural progression… of a tendency in human thought… that’s been going on since the BEGINNING of civilization as we know it. More SPECIFICALLY since about 5000 years ago when we started structuring things in terms of forced hierarchical authority. As Murray Bookchin says… Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse…the great native american leaders of the resistance against colonial domination from Europe. Sitting Bull and Crazy horse… were anarchists to him. Now… if you said to either Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, “you’re an anarchist”...they’d look at you like you lost your MIND…they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about with the SPECIFIC label of “anarchist”.But if you told them about the anarchist VALUES we talked about LAST time of liberty equality and solidarity…these two people…to Murray Bookchin…would understand EXACTLY what you mean. They would CERTAINLY understand the concept of liberty… and resistance to involuntary authority that’s being IMPOSED upon them from the outside, they’d definitely understand the concept of EQUALITY among the members of their tribe and how people ultimately compliment each other with different skills, they of COURSE saw solidarity with their immediate community as an important part of how |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-4|society should be structured. So again labels aside to Murray Bookchin call it anarchism call it whatever you want…but the native american resistance against colonial domination represented a very HUMAN tendency… that keeps on REPEATING itself throughout human history…a TENDENCY…to demand when its POSSIBLE… GREATER LEVELS of liberty, equality and solidarity, than FORMER societies have had before:Christianity, is an example of this to Bookchin…with the second coming of Christ as a sociological story created by human beings to EXPRESS it…where after the end times it is said…the wolves shall lay with the lambs. The false prophets and unjust authorities on earth will be abolished and everyone will live together equally under the eyes of God. THIS is an example to Bookchin of this tendency in people’s thinking that in more MODERN times we might call anarchist.MORE examples of this throughout history though: how about the American Revolution…you know, taxation without representation from King George…a focus on the solidarity of regional communities rather than colonial rule…there came a point… where people were unwilling to LIVE under this unjustified authoritarian regime…and they decided to DO something about it. What would you CALL that tendency? Is it a totally isolated event?Since this is a |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-5|philosophy podcast: to give an example Bookchin mentions from the history of philosophy…how about the Enlightenment… that we’ve talked about EXTENSIVELY on this show. You know, when Immanuel Kant writes his famous essay in 1784 called what is Enlightenment… and he says that to BE enlightened we gotta REMOVE ourselves of our self-imposed tutelage of the past…to him meaning the needless authority of religious thought…and THEN when he says that moving forward we should be using REASON as a more reliable guide for structuring the systems in our world…when Kant WRITES that… THAT is him and many others EXISTING in a society… where they look around them and OBVIOUSLY FEEL like something’s very wrong about the way things are…and it’s them STANDING UP to the authority of religious claims to truth… and DEMANDING greater levels of liberty, equality and solidarity for people in the process. Now… there are a HUNDRED more examples I could GIVE of moments that Murray Bookchin believes are examples of this HUMAN tendency repeating itself.The historical RULE seems to be: that when a high enough percentage of people look around them… and they realize something’s wrong with how things are set up…they will eventually get tired of it, |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-6|and DEMAND greater levels of liberty, equality and solidarity. Is… it… CRAZY to think that we might HAVE one of these moments of progress again? I mean ask yourself: have we experienced the LAST time that the average person gets in UPGRADE in the quality of their life in these areas? Probably not…and how CLOSE we are to another one of those moments occurring…is probably correlated with what percentage of people in a given time are looking around them…and thinking wow, things are REALLY messed up in the way we’re doing X thing. So ENTER…Murray Bookchin’s PRIMARY area of expertise…the field that he dedicated most of his LIFE to…i’m talking about the human species and its RELATIONSHIP to the natural world. Again this is one of those major issues going on today… that entertaining an anarchist perspective, might give us an interesting new angle on, see our WORLD a little different. Murray Bookchin saw himself fundamentally…as a social ecologist. Now most people hear that term social ecologist…and no doubt know that it must have SOMETHING to do with the environment. And that’s true. But to understand FULLY what social ecology is… it’s important to understand how it DIFFERS from more POPULAR strategies |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-7|in today’s world of solving our environmental problems. Picture somebody that CARES about the environment a lot…TOTALLY well-intentioned, WELL educated. This person recycles…they compost…they even got a little ficus PLANT that they named Hubert, he sits in the windowsill everyday smiling, this person is incredible. And this PERSON…whenever they leave their apartment to go and VOTE every couple years they show up to the ballot box and they DO their part…they SUPPORT the bills that help the environment, they voted for a ban on single use plastics last time they went. They supported a bill to plant TREES in urban communities. They volunteer to pick up TRASH on the BEACH in their off time. They DONATE to green charities, they buy from green companies whenever they can. By ONE definition…they are the PICTURE of an environmentally conscious person. But ALL of this effort… no matter HOW well intentioned it is…to a social ecologist like Murray Bookchin…this is all when it comes down to it…pretty superficial if we’re being honest. What does he mean? Well, BANNING single use plastics for example: you know, you buy something, it comes to you in a plastic package, you throw the packaging away and then it |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-8|sits in a landfill for a million years, THAT’S a problem…and getting RID of that plastic CERTAINLY may clear up a bit of space in our landfills, for sure. But it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING… to fix the true CAUSE… of single use plastics being a thing in the FIRST place. Because single use plastics…. are just ONE iteration, one SYMPTOM… of the toxic way that we’ve set things UP…in our social and economic institutions. Social ecologists like Murray Bookchin think that what people TYPICALLY think of as purely ECOLOGICAL problems, something that is a problem JUST when it comes to the environment, in REALITY, these things are caused by HORRIBLE ways that we’ve set up the relationships… between fellow human beings. In fact even SAYING it that way I just did… where there’s some obvious distinction between where other PEOPLE out there end…and the natural world begins… that’s a false DISTINCTION to a social ecologist. No, as human beings: civilization isn’t SEPARATE from the natural world…we ARE a part of the natural world. As Murray Bookchin says: we are ALSO, an animal species living in an ecosystem on this planet that’s worthy of respect.And when you look out at the world… and you see |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-9|things like pollution and overfishing and deforestation and resource depletion…these tangible effects on the natural world… are a direct REFLECTION… of our social and economic relationships. And our attitude towards nature directly REFLECTS our attitude towards other people. A social ecologist is just somebody that’s fine with RECOGNIZING that reality…and then tries their best in their free time to figure out how ANYBODY ELSE could possibly see it otherwise. To Murray Bookchin… we are on a sinking ship here…we have a sick, global society where the accepted economic arrangement is that some countries are winners and other countries are losers. It’s an arrangement where countries like the United States or England can get OFF the sinking ship and find a life boat…while other countries whose populations feel the direct IMPACT of the way things are set up…these people are just left to suffer. People justify it by saying it’s either just bad luck for them…or they use some sort of Darwinian argument that only the strong survive. WHATEVER it is the larger HORROR of it all to Murray Bookchin…is that ALL throughout this ENTIRE process… almost NO ONE is even INTERESTED in asking: why the ship is SINKING in the first place. They |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-10|just want to paddle on their life boat and find ANOTHER ship that’s doomed to sink, and as the ship starts to sink they’ll just take a bucket and start dumping buckets of water over the side like they’re bugs bunny to try to make the problem not seem so bad. It’s almost… like you’re dealing with people who are immersed in a religion. And if you remember our episode we did on the philosopher Guy Debord and his book the Society of the Spectacle… then you already know some of the arguments for how Capitalism…in PARTICULAR…can NOT ONLY serve as a religion for people to participate in, but it has a SPECIAL ability to MASK the fact that you’re PART of a religion when you’re IN it, and MORE than that often times when you SHOW someone HOW SIMILAR the commodity fetishism IS to a religion, they don’t even usually care that much on the other side of it. To Murray Bookchin, people have been CONDITIONED into a society where they are practically OBSESSED with hierarchy to the point they barely NOTICE the problematic hierarchies of Capitalism. Again, to many people brought UP in this world: almost EVERYTHING is viewed through the |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-11|lens of superiority and inferiority…am I BETTER or WORSE than this person? Is my stuff better or worse than THEIR stuff? Even people who are OPPRESSED by hierarchical structures in the world…will often compare THEIR level of oppression to some OTHER group’s level of oppression, and ask who’s oppression is SUPERIOR? Who wins the GOLD MEDAL for being the biggest victim?…to Murray Bookchin, just playing into the HANDS in his eyes of the people who are making BILLIONS of DOLLARS off of people CONTINUING to be divided…and just keeping the very hierarchy alive that people say is the cause of a lot of social problems. This type of person TURNS themselves he says…into a mere conservationist. Meaning: all your effort is just CONSERVING the current economic and political model by continuing to preserve its sentiment.And the SAME THING goes by the way for the well-intentioned environmentalist that we talked about before. The environmentalist may think, Murray Bookchin says, that fossil fuels and carbon in the atmosphere are a problem… so what they’re going to do is SUPPORT a bill that BANS the production of gas powered automobiles, and retrofits ALL those auto making factories and uses the buildings to produce solar |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-12|panels now. Sounds GREAT in theory. But as great as that SOUNDS to Murray Bookchin…what you end up DOING AGAIN is turning yourself into MERELY a conservationist of the status quo…because REGARDLESS of whether the factory is producing cars or solar panels…those solar panels are STILL being PRODUCED by a workforce of people that are being exploited in the name of profit and constant growth. It’s TOO superficial, it’s putting a BANDAID on a gaping wound and it deflects the TRUE social problem that may ACTUALLY lead to real progress in the world. This is a HALLMARK of Capitalism to Murray Bookchin. And this IMPERATIVE towards constant growth within capitalism. This desire to OUT COMPETE all of your fellow human beings…a structure to society where people are atomized and turned into OBJECTS rather than subjects. This NOT ONLY allows for PEOPLE to be VIEWED primarily AS these objects to be manipulated for the sake of whatever’s economically best for a society, but it ALSO puts people into a position where they have to be DIRECTLY AT ODDS with NATURE… if they EVER want to be able to make a living. You have to PARTICIPATE in whatever the company is DOING to the natural |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-13|world JUST to be able to keep your job… and this TREATMENT of the natural world as simply a WAREHOUSE full of raw materials…this BLEEDS into the way that people view ecological issues OUTSIDE of work. In fact, what we DO primarily in modern western economies he says…is we take organic, LIVING beings in the natural world…and we process them into INORGANIC consumer goods. We take a TREE for example that’s been alive for hundreds of years and we process it down into toilet paper to cleanse our oh so sensitive butts with. We take trees and turn them into paper advertisements trying to get people to buy some OTHER product. Junk mail. Ironically if you just USE the junk mail AS toilet paper, at least it’d be getting SOME kind of use…sign me up for that service by the way!To Murray Bookchin…the thing the western world produces the MOST of he says.. is trash. Courtesy he says of again this constant imperative towards growth. Once people have been sedated with consumer culture, you know buying ALL KINDS of STUFF to make them feel temporarily good…well we NEED people to keep BUYING stuff to keep the ECONOMY going. We can’t have people just |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-14|STOP BUYING stuff, guys. What are you DOING?So to Bookchin… what you GET are things like planned obsolescence. You buy a phone… and in a few years whether you’ve taken good care of it or not the mandatory SOFTWARE update makes your phone practically unusable…and it’s so annoying most people end up spending $500 on another one just to get ON with their life.A typical house today…is built out of materials and with construction that MAYBE is gonna last a few decades before it needs some MAJOR repairs…maybe a hundred years before it needs to be totally replaced. Again, the ECONOMY…NEEDS to keep going under capitalism. But what if…I mean IMAGINE…if we built things that were designed to last a long time. Like FAR BEYOND your lifetime. Something like a Gothic Cathedral that’s built to last thousands of years. Something like a good cast iron pan. The only WORLD… where people would see this kind of longevity as a BAD thing… is IN a world where things NEED to be constantly harvested, used up, spent and then sent to a landfill so that people can keep buying the NEXT thing made out of the organic, natural world. To Murray Bookchin…is there any |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-15|point where we take a step back and ask what’s the END GAME HERE? I mean we have a seemingly INFINITE capitalist imperative towards growth… and a FINITE number of resources in the natural world. Isn’t it just CRAZY for someone to not expect this to go bad for us at some point? With the growing number of people looking around at what we’re doing and feeling weird about it…is that just a growing number of realists that actually want to ask what is CAUSING this ship to sink in the first place?Well there’s definitely RESPONSES to these sorts of questions. Common attitudes in today’s world, for example: uh, understand that capitalism’s always trying to grow…but are we just going to IGNORE the fact that technology is a thing? Are we gonna ignore that greater levels of technology will make it MORE efficient to harvest resources from the planet, and maybe even make it where we BARELY have to USE resources from the natural world at all? I mean more generally: hasn’t this ALWAYS been the story of humanity at OTHER points in time? Haven’t we before gotten to a place where it SEEMS like all the chips are stacked against |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-16|us, but some genius invents something, technology comes along, and ends up saving us? Well this TYPE of thinking… is along the lines of ANOTHER common strategy in the modern world to get RID of our ecological problem…what Murray Bookchin often calls Futurism or the type of person ….who’s ALWAYS WILLING… to write off our environmental responsibility right now…and rely on some technojesus that’s hypothetically gonna save us all in the future at some point. Murray Bookchin would say look: you can ALWAYS SAY…that technology’s going to save us no matter how BAD things have gotten. But people have been saying that for decades and it HASN’T solved the problem yet. How long do we wait around until we start considering other options BESIDES technology? But no…no. To the people sufficiently COMMITTED to this religious savior relationship between us and technology… they will start to become what Murray Bookchin calls a futurist where IN THE 1970’s…FIFTY YEARS ago…Murray Bookchin talks about how QUICKLY these Futurists will will start talking about colonizing the moon or MARS as a solution to our environmental problems. They will talk about earth as though its a giant SPACESHIP as a metaphor. They’ll take the most advanced technology |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-17|they can conceive of in their day… and just AMPLIFY it and talk about how the more POWERFUL version of this technology will solve all the ecological problems the world is creating…What they will talk about…is simply EXPORTING…the fundamentally flawed social institutions and relationship with nature…and shipping it off to ANOTHER planet where it can take hold there. Again the Futurist…becomes JUST LIKE the environmentalist…simply a CONSERVATIONIST of the status quo. They have effectively GIVEN UP on planet earth all around them. And as Bookchin says anybody coming from the perspective of a social ecologist just SEES this whole situation from a totally different perspective. To a social ecologist…it is NOT humanity’s job to be good STEWARDS of nature… or to just be good self-appointed MANAGERS of nature…to a social ecologist what we should be aiming for is to be living in HARMONY with nature. His REASONS for believing this come in PART from evolutionary biology…he says from the first time there was an amoeba…that amoeba had a certain WAY that it was to BE an amoeba. That amoeba RELIED on its environment to be able to live you know it needs to live in water for example. That Amoeba ADAPTED to its |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-18|environment when that water changes temperature. And when you watch as life  evolves over millions of years into more COMPLEX forms of life… the ADAPTATIONS that the lifeforms make in relation to their environments, start to become more complex as well. This process goes on long enough you start developing consciousness. Then you start to see intelligence emerge. Eventually animals like beavers… start to adapt in constructive ways they start to make dams. Chimpanzees will use sticks to get ants out of an anthill: in other words EVENTUALLY… what starts to evolve… is a CREATIVE capacity towards the creature’s environment…one that goes BEYOND just simply ADAPTING to your environment, to a type of existence where you start CREATING things and the point is: THIS is part of what we DO as human BEINGS!Now to be ENTIRELY CLEAR here: to Murray Bookchin the natural world was OBVIOUSLY not created exclusively FOR human beings. Don’t want ANYONE to misunderstand that. But what he DOES say is that when you consider the TYPE of creature we are, one that’s EVOLVED within an environment. And when you consider our CAPACITY to reason, and our ability to be self aware of the things we create |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-19|and how they IMPACT the environment…even if this earth wasn’t MADE just for us…to Murray Bookchin to deny that we have a SPECIAL KIND of responsibility to the natural world is JUST to deny the type of CREATURES that we are. We ARE the type of creatures that intervene in the natural world. We HAVE to. The question is not WHETHER we should intervene. But HOW should we intervene in a way that is AS harmonious as possible. The PLACE our thinking should be STARTING from… is not how do we continue doing EXACTLY what we’re doing… but just do it in a way where it doesn’t spiral out of control so fast…the THING we should be ASKING is how do we find a way to COMPLIMENT, this delicate ecosystem that we are a part of? How do we use these big BRAINS that we have to find a way to GROW as lifeforms do, to NURTURE human potential and human spirit, but DO it in a way where we’re not DESTROYING the environment we need to survive in the process? This is a VERY different way of SEEING our place in the natural world.And what comes ALONG with that…if that |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-20|was the way you saw things is a certain amount of RESPECT for the immediate environment that you’re living in. IF the earth is NOT just a warehouse full of resources that was put here for us to just make a bunch of stuff for people to be able to buy…then the earth NOW becomes something that you MORE see as…your home. Or your oikos to use a Greek term that Bookchin really liked. And when you consider the FUTURIST strategy that the goal is to get on a rocketship…leave the planet and have a clean start somewhere else…a social ecologist might ask: doesn’t ANY strategy of living in harmony with an environment that’s actually going to work…doesn’t that ultimately have to START from a place where this planet is your home, and that you LOVE this place and you want to find a way to preserve it because it MEANS something to you? Do we treat the planet like its a bathroom at a bus station where dudes are literally arcing their pee into the urinal from five feet back like they’re Steph Curry…because nobody really CARES about this bathroom everybody’s on their way to somewhere else that is ACTUALLY |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-21|their home.If your ACTUAL home…where you live now…was a COMPLETE disaster area. Trash everywhere, nothing worked. Would you BE okay with the person you’re living with saying look: I get it place is dirty…but cleaning technology’s gonna come along ONE of these days. We’ll get AROUND to it sometime. See to Bookchin…a Futurist talks a big game about having these cosmic communities in space, these galactic villages where we’re all working together in harmony…but we don’t even have those sorts of harmonious communities on our OWN planet. What makes you think we’re gonna have them there?To Murray Bookchin…technology should NEVER be thought of as some sort of religious savior… or as something that allows us to write off our immediate responsibility to our environment…but what technology ABSOLUTELY should be thought of as…is something that ALWAYS, at any moment in history, has the ability to LIBERATE people and make human life a whole lot BETTER than what it is.This is one of the directions people will go in when they HEAR these sorts of ideas. That if what this dude’s saying…is that we all need to live in harmony with NATURE man. That what he MUST be saying that we all |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-22|need to go back into the stone age, reject ANY progress that’s been made, and sleep on a pile of LEAVES you fashioned into a mattress on the floor of a cave somewhere.But again this is NOT what Bookchin is saying in fact: given how hardwired it sometimes seems to BE into human beings to just keep trying to make better and better stuff that makes people’s LIVES better…technology should be something we’re all CELEBRATING when it comes to making progress. But he’d say in PRACTICE…CELEBRATION…is NOT ALWAYS how it goes DOWN under a capitalist socio-economic model. To explain what he means take one of the most potentially world changing tech advances in the recent past…developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence… and ALL that may be possible if intelligence was something that could be automated at scale. Now REGARDLESS of whether artificial GENERAL  intelligence ever becomes a real thing…when you consider JUST a conservative estimate of the types of jobs AI’s gonna be able to do better than a person within the next 50 years…people living…in an alternate UNIVERSE, where their EVERYDAY life ISN’T to just be a worker and consumer under capitalism…in that alternate universe those people might be taking |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-23|to the streets REJOICING, throwing their hands up in the air, weeping. Confetti goes off behind them. Hooray!THANK YOU, technology. Because of you now MILLIONS OF PEOPLE won’t have to do these menial, boring, soul-draining jobs anymore…and now, just like at OTHER points throughout history, the average human life can NOW be something that looks VERY DIFFERENT than it did before. Maybe people will be able to spend more time with their families now…maybe they could get to know their neighbors, be a part of their immediate community…in this FANTASY world…if technology can FREE people up to do other things…then why WOULDN’T we use technology to get the necessary work done?  But that’s NOT what goes on in a capitalist society. In OUR world…WE’RE seeing this EXACT SAME amazing breakthrough in technology, of AI…and instead of CELEBRATING…a LOT people are terrified. Terrified they’re going to be unemployed when AI replaces them. Sad that what they went to school for for years is now a body of knowledge that can be replaced by an app on your cellphone. Scared you’re going to go to school for something NOW that will be completely obsolete by the time you graduate. Why is such an |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-24|INCREDIBLE technological breakthrough being SEEN as something that’s going to HURT people? To Murray Bookchin this could ONLY go on in the type of society where scarcity… is something that is enforced. He says 100 years ago scarcity was something that had to be endured. In today’s world it’s something that is enforced. What did he mean by that? Well, in theory…we HAVE the technology and the resources to be able to produce enough for EVERYONE on this planet where no one needs to be stuck on that sinking ship from before without a lifeboat. We HAVE the ability to TREAT our fellow human beings as though they’re an animal in this ecosystem that is WORTHY of respect. And yes, people in former societies had to ENDURE scarcity when there wasn’t enough food, shelter or medicine to go around for everyone. But in today’s world the ONLY thing stopping these basic resources from being distributed to people… is an ENFORCEMENT by a centralized authority that NEEDS scarcity to CONTINUE to EXIST…so that people will keep working and producing at an ever increasing rate, to be able to KEEP this economy GOING.An anarchist might ask: could this BE one of those MOMENTS in |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-25|history we talked about at the beginning of the episode…where technology advances… and greater levels of liberty, equality and solidarity are POSSIBLE for the average person…and that we may get to a tipping point where enough people are looking AROUND them and have this very human URGE to BRING about a better world where people DON’T need to be as exploited as we’ve done in the past?So a totally REASONABLE question to ASK here…when you hear this sort of critique about SO MANY sweeping aspects of society…is to ask the question so what should we DO about it then Mr. Bookchin? Or as I like to call him: Uncle Murray. And the good thing about Uncle Murray is that he’s not shy at ALL about giving answers to that question…he’ll TELL YOU EXACTLY what he thinks needs to be done and it starts to sound similar to the federated network of communities that we talked about LAST episode.He is VERY MUCH a fan… of local community involvement in MULTIPLE different domains. He’s a fan of food cooperatives. Affinity groups. Non-hierarchical, voluntary, neighborhood associations, town meetings…In other words in a very BROAD sense…Murray Bookchin was a fan of the idea of starting |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-26|SMALL where the people that are LIVING in a sick society like this can start to rediscover what it’s like to PARTICIPATE and have a RELATIONSHIP with other PEOPLE that is on a HUMAN level SCALE. See this is one of the big PROBLEMS to him with how society is currently set up. It’s too BIG. Our CITIES he said… have become nations and he says that when you go to New York City and you stand on top of the world trade center and you look out at the horizon…obviously his example didn’t age the best but his POINT is that when you’re in a high place and you look out at the horizon and it’s 40 miles across with a sprawling metropolis of millions of people between YOU and the horizon…how in the world… can ANY single person POSSIBLY hope to understand human life… at that scale? How can you be EVER informed enough to understand the problems of millions or BILLIONS? More than that: how can anyone…whose BEEN elected to GOVERN society at that scale, POSSIBLY COMPREHEND the level of BUREAUCRACY that’s required for a centralized authority to KEEP all those people well managed? No what Uncle Murray says |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-27|is that much like every other creature in nature… that needs to learn to live within its immediate environment in a harmonious way…if we could start SMALL…JUST in our OWN COMMUNITIES…if we could JUST take responsibility for how OUR immediate SURROUNDINGS are…that might be one small step in the right direction towards a better world.See one small step at a time… is OKAY to a lot of revolutionary thinkers. In fact dare I say to MOST revolutionary thinkers at this point…incremental progress… may actually be the ONLY WAY. Nobody here is talking about some violent, bloody revolution that takes place over night. There’s good reason to believe that when it comes to anarchism… nothing even remotely like that could ever work in the real world…for many of the SAME reasons that Marxist revolutions haven’t worked out in the past. That you can’t take people that from the moment they are born are conditioned to see their life through the lens of being a worker and consumer, you know alienated labor at a company during the day, netflix at night to ease the pain…you can’t TAKE people from a culture like that’s like THAT…start a revolution one day, transplant them into a |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-28|society where their life is completely different and then expect them to be a functional, happy person on the other side of it. Again, revolution to many thinkers NEEDS to be done slowly…because the ONLY way you ever bring ABOUT these sorts of ideas in a way that is enduring… is if the SENSIBILITY of the society changes to the point that a different structure is demanded from within.So when we’ve TALKED recently about the work of byung chul han and foucault and agamben and many others and the feeling at the end of the episodes can be one where it’s like: okay…the world’s obviously not a GREAT PLACE for everyone right now…CLEARLY what it is to be a PERSON on this planet can be better for a LOT more people out there. But how do we get that DONE? This is a social ecologist like Murray Bookchin saying that the TRUE underlying CAUSE of all that…has to do with our relationships to each other as people. That our SOCIAL problems…are in fact ECOLOGICAL problems as well. And that to FIX them INSTEAD of planting a little ficus repen on your kitchen counter, naming it Hubert and thinking that you and |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-29|Hubert are saving the world together…maybe the more PRODUCTIVE way to fix some of these problems is to STOP thinking on the scale of HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of PEOPLE for a second…and instead take a page out of the book of an amoeba…start small…try for a bit JUST to heal the relationship you have with yourself and your immediate environment… then maybe try to expand that to your family, then into your community. I mean these local communities with a bottom up power structure CAN EXIST in the world RIGHT NOW if people wanted to build them. There’s nothing ILLEGAL about it. But to Uncle Murray, the ULTIMATE hope would be that as people participate in these communities, and rediscover what it’s like to actually BE involved in a decision making process, the hope would be that through entirely PEACEFUL methods, the SENSIBILITY of society would gradually change over time, and then at that point these communities could be in communication with each other, network together regionally, nationally and then maybe INTERNATIONALLY. The HOPE would be that this would PEACEFULLY turn into another one of these moments from history where people demanded this greater level of freedom, equality and solidarity for |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k-30|the structure of society more broadly.   Now there were a LOT OF QUESTIONS sent in after last episode ASKING about how ANY of these bottom UP ways of organizing the world could EVER work in practice. There were some recurring ones…things like: How does an anarchist society protect itself if some other powerful country invades? How do you stop internal organizations from gaining influence among these communities and taking things over? How do we deal with crime in this world that you describe? What do we do if one of these little federated communities decides that THEIR mission statement that THEY hang up on the wall… is that hi we’re all murderers and rapists in THIS community, you gotta respect our RIGHTS! More than that people asked: When have any of these ideas ever worked well in the past ANYWAY? HAVE THEY? Is there ANY form of government that exists today that even remotely RESEMBLES ANY of this we’ve been talking about? These are not ONLY some of the most common questions I received after last episode…they’re some of the most common questions ASKED of anarchists because they’re the FIRST place an intelligent person’s brain GOES to when they HEAR these ideas for |2024-01-11T15:09:19.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-26l4k|193|Episode #193 - The main export of the western world is trash. - Anarchism Pt. 2 (Bookchin, Social Ecology)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-0|  So I’m going to assume… there’s at least a CERTAIN percentage of people coming into this episode with an understanding of anarchism…that what an anarchist fundamentally believes is that we should overthrow the government… tomorrow. Oppositional defiance in other words. The FIRM belief… that I’m not gonna PARTICIPATE in this unjust institution called the government anymore, I’m not WASHING the DISHES tonight, so with all due respect SCREW YOU DAD. No as an anarchist MY evening is gonna be going down to the mall, I’m gonna buy a spiky bracelet from hot topic maybe steal a toaster…and then I’m gonna sit back and watch as society as we know it burns on down into ashes. That’s what a real anarchist does. But I think every serious anarchist out there would say that that view is at BEST, a delusional oversimplification of anarchism, and at worst: it is propaganda, propaganda that’s maintained by certain people because the REALITY of the matter to an anarchist… is that if every person out there KNEW the full story when it comes to anarchism as a political philosophy…they might find themselves with VIEWS on the nature of power, the way things are set up… |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-1|that would be extremely problematic for some of the people that are CURRENTLY in charge of things. Noam Chomsky, great philosopher alive today, he was asked the question: what is anarchism to you? And his response is one that gives us a pretty good initial STARTING point for the discussion that’s to come…HIS answer was that ANARCHY as far as HE can see it…is that whenever there’s an authority that you witness in the world, PARTICULARLY a hierarchical authority that exists within a society…it is ultimately THAT authority’s job… to JUSTIFY its existence. No matter WHAT it is whether that’s the father in a family situation saying I’m the MAN of the HOUSE I make the decisions here. Whether that’s a PRIEST in a church. Whether that’s your assistant manager working at Dairy Queen. Whether that’s the CEO of a company, and YES whether that’s the government of the country you live in: ALL of these people no matter HOW GOOD their intentions are have a RESPONSIBILITY to JUSTIFY their position of authority. Because authority… is NOT a self-justifying thing…to Noam Chomsky. Not EVERY situation in the world REQUIRES some PERSON who’s APPOINTED where they have the authority to REIGN over and micro |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-2|manage other people’s decisions. Nobody likes the mall security guard… walking around eating a wetzels pretzel, drinking an orange julius feeling entitled to mess with people’s days just because he’s got a uniform and a walkie talkie. Now IN the situations… where there’s a father who’s the MAN of the HOUSE and he’s making all the decisions…but in practice when MAKING those decisions he just ends up being a bumbling idiot that puts his family into a bunch of bad situations…an anarchist might ask the question: WOULD that family… MAYBE be a little bit better off if EVERYONE in the household was contributing to that decision making process? Can that father JUSTIFY his position of complete authority? In the situation of the priest at the head of a church…where he tells his congregation hey you know, it’s the craziest thing I woke up this morning and God told me part of his plan today is that you all should mow my lawn and get me a glass of lemonade, won’t even GO into what priests have done to people HISTORICALLY in this position of authority…an anarchist might ask: would you say it’s necessary… for that priest to have to justify THEIR position |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-3|of authority as well? Well if you agree with THESE two examples…the question just becomes: how far up the ladder do we require people to DO this? Does it apply to the boss in a company that’s had the job for 20 years terrorizing people in cubicles? Does it apply to the government itself? To Noam Chomsky all that an anarchist is…is someone who takes these questions seriously. Someone who believes… that it’s the TASK of the people who HOLD these positions of authority to DEMONSTRATE…WHY them being in charge… is serving everyone BETTER… than what WE could do on our OWN as responsible adults. They ask the question: what makes this person SO MUCH MORE QUALIFIED to know what’s best for everyone…than… everyone? Because magically….when you and your friends are trying to choose where to go for dinner and there’s a disagreement between you…you DON’T need some sort of arbiter or governor overseeing that conversation to be able to come to a decision. When you’re parking in a parking lot…magically you don’t NEED a parking enforcement WARDEN to direct traffic and tell everybody where to park. People figure it out on their own somehow, democratically. So far from anarchism being JUST about overthrowing |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-4|the government tomorrow: one general way of thinking of the sentiment of anarchism… is just to ask the question: can you think of ANY examples as you go through your daily life…where CURRENTLY, there’s a hierarchical authority in place that SUPPOSEDLY needs to govern over it… but to you it seems clear in some OTHER world we can imagine…the people amongst THEMSELVES could run that thing just as good or better, on their own. In other words, again, forget the revolution for now…an anarchist wants to FIRST ask the question: is there any way that we can be even slightly MORE FREE in these smaller situations that present themselves to us all the time?To Noam Chomsky… if an authority cannot justify its existence…then it is OUR responsibility to dismantle it. And he’d say what you should ALSO consider AS YOU LOOK OUT for these examples of authority and you’re determining whether they’re necessary or not…is that if you’re one of these people that’s on BOARD with questioning the authority of say the domineering father…but to question the government… just seems ridiculous to you because what’s the world without a government? If we didn’t have the government everything would obviously just |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-5|descend into absolute chaos…if that’s how you’re thinking: Chomsky would say consider for a second just how many groups there have been throughout history that have been SO entrenched in oppressive systems themselves… that they not only saw them as morally okay at the time…but sometimes they saw them as NECESSARY for the world to be able to function at all. For example: Slavery. It is a well documented fact that there have been countless slaves that have lived over the course of human history, that because of the messages they received from the moment they were born, through indoctrination, through manipulation they SAW their life as a SLAVE…as something that NEEDS to go on for the world to function. There need to be free men…and there need to be slaves. That’s the natural order of things they were told. If all the SLAVES were freed…who would do all the work?But despite the narrative that was accepted by the people being oppressed…was any of this true? No something they THOUGHT has to be good for them was actually holding them back. Another example Chomsky gives: women. Thousands of years of civilization where women are not able to vote, not able to get |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-6|an education, be independent. Women were told, and MANY accepted that this is just the natural ORDER of things. Women’s role is to handle the domestic side of life and take care of the kids…men’s role was to go die in a war for some rich person or work himself into an early grave. Point is: these are OPPRESSED PEOPLE… society did not NEED to be structured this way… and yet many of these people believed this was a necessary part of what had to go on for the world to be able to function. Again something they thought was GOOD for them was ACTUALLY holding them back. Could it BE…that we have a similar level of acceptance for many of the institutions where power and authority lie in the world WE live in…an anarchist might ask: are we doing the exact same thing when we look at the government as it’s currently structured… and can’t imagine how the world would EVER survive without it? Something important that needs to be said: there is no ACTUAL anarchist cookbook. There is no codified DOCTRINE of anarchy… and HOW it should be implemented. In fact if you hear somebody say “I’m an anarchist.” The |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-7|truth is you actually know very little ABOUT them at that point. You’d have to ask a bunch of follow up questions.The reason why is because anarchism is a community FULL of free thinkers that are absolutely FINE with disagreeing with each other. And it makes sense it actually matches the spirit of anarchism overall: what you have is a community of people who fundamentally disagree with the idea of hierarchical authority…so you don’t generally have a bunch of people that read a single book… say, “SOUNDS good I guess!”, and then agree with everything that it says. What you end up with at times is a pretty FRAGMENTED community of people trying to find solutions… who AGREE on certain CORE issues, but differ on a lot of the details. It’s been said there are as many forms of anarchism as there are forms of authority that exist in society that it’s an anarchist’s job to question. Because of this: it’s very difficult to say ANYTHING about anarchism generally without leaving somebody out. I mean, even Noam Chomsky’s initial definition we just talked about…sounds pretty reasonable…but even still while I think almost all anarchists would agree with a piece of it…there’s |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-8|also PLENTY of anarchists out there that would be FRUSTRATED if that were the only definition someone considered. Reason being is that anarchism is FAR from one of these ideas we’ve SEEN on the podcast before where a thinker will critique everything ABOUT society as we know it…and then when someone asks them, “so what should we DO about it?” They’re like, “I got nothing, honestly.”No, in fact one of the endearing things ABOUT anarchism is how many alternative worlds they suggest that you can imagine what it would be like to live in. What I want to do with the beginning of this series is offer up a CLASSIC example of one of these, one that wouldn’t necessarily be applied JUST at the level of government, but could be the model for how OTHER hierarchical systems in society could be reimagined as well. So what I’m asking is for the sake of getting the most out of a philosophy podcast here today where we entertain ideas without necessarily accepting them…let’s all imagine that our belief that the world couldn’t function without the government… is similar to the belief that SLAVERY is needed for the ECONOMY to function. Just visualize yourself |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-9|floating on a cloud of open mindedness. Welcome new ideas into your mind’s eye.Seriously though, picture this: as the anarchist thinker Errico Malatesta put it in one of his books, very visually…imagine someone that from the moment they were born their legs were bound together by a rope. But that DESPITE their legs being bound together…they were somehow able to learn to walk. Now, the rope tying their legs together… PROVIDES them with a certain kind of structure…and you can imagine this person saying thank GOD for this ROPE I have that helps hold my legs together…without it I would NEVER be able to walk. Scientists, philosophers in that world would come up with all sorts of stories about how NECESSARY it is to have your legs bound together if you EVER want to be able to walk…but little would ANYBODY in that society know that in fact ALL the rope is doing is limiting the strength and potential of the person if they were able to develop without that assistance. Maybe the BEST place to start talking about alternatives to government is to ask the question: what is the government anyway? I mean, we talk about the government as though |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-10|it’s this abstract thing…the government is the WILL of the people. The government is the thin veil of justice between us and barbarism. But ANOTHER way of looking at it…more in line with the way an ANARCHIST might view the government…is that the government… is ultimately just people. The government is made up of governors. People… that are elected into positions that are permanent… in that the sense that the positions ALWAYS need someone IN the position at all times…and then these PEOPLE for a predetermined, mandatory length of time… make the decisions from the TOP DOWN on behalf of everyone. Many of the PROBLEMS anarchists are going to HAVE with this way of setting things up…are gonna be things that most people can relate to. In this setup: politicians often make promises to get elected and then don’t actually carry the promises out. That’s a thing. Another thing: there can often be a HUGE disconnect, between the lives of the elected officials, and the reality of things as it exists on the ground for the people that are actually LIVING in the society. Another problem: a relative handful of people who are elected…just in terms of their education…obviously are limited in |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-11|their scope of understanding the problems that are going on, and also how to solve them. Hierarchies like this…are extremely fragile, power isn’t DIVERSIFIED enough it’s often said…meaning that ANY enemy domestic OR foreign can TARGET the few people that are in positions of power and then the entire system can break down as a result. Has happened many times before throughout history.Oversight and accountability in government, often becomes a problem. Corruption, is often a problem. In fact, an anarchist might say: with how CONSISTENTLY power seems to corrupt human beings…it’s almost as if almost NOBODY’S actually qualified to HOLD these hierarchical positions of authority. But even if you COULD sift out all the bad actors and all the incompetence… which doesn’t seem possible…but IF you could: how could you ever ELECT these people in a way that ensured what was best for society… and DOESN’T just reward the people who can find a way to manipulate people into getting votes? How could you ever PROVE a case… that this small cabinet of people that we’ve elected…are SOMEHOW better at knowing what’s best for everyone than the collective wisdom of everyone?Now someone could say BACK to an anarchist here well there’s a |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-12|PROBLEM with that, uh, grand plan of yours. We can’t LEVERAGE the collective wisdom of everyone…it’s impossible. This is why we VOTE to put our best and brightest at the helm of the ship. They’re mediators between all the conflicting interests that make UP a society. This is what ALLOWS people with differing opinions to coexist so well! Welcome to the 21st century you big dummy. But some anarchists would say back that to this RUDE person… that this is NOT what the people do… that we call “the government”. The government does not mediate. It dominates. What WE call the government… is simply the entity that’s out there… that has a barrel of a gun next to your head passing laws that restrict your freedoms that will lock you in a concrete cell if you don’t go along with whoever is in power right now. There’s that often quoted line about the Romans I’m not even sure if it’s a real line but it goes the Romans would conquer everyone in their path and they’d leave a wasteland behind them…and then they’d look back at that wasteland and they’d call it peace. Is peace, within society, is it achieved through |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-13|mediation? Or through temporary bouts of domination? Interesting question to bring up at the dinner table. Now, MANY western societies these days are founded on values like liberty, equality, fraternity…etc. If it weren’t so sad an anarchist would probably die laughing at the idea that THESE are the values that are being offered. I think they’d say the WORDS you’re using there are good…but anarchists typically have a totally different definition of things like liberty and equality…in fact THREE values that are supported by MOST anarchists these days, the values that an anarchist society would try to structure their world around are famously liberty, equality and solidarity. But it NEEDS to be said to an anarchist… these three values are INTRINSICALLY linked together and each one of them NEEDS the other two if it’s going to be a TRUE version of what the value is. For example: it's been said in anarchist literature…that liberty…without equality…is just liberty for the most powerful or privileged within a society. But THAT’S not true liberty. Similarly, equality without LIBERTY…is just something like an outdated form of communism…it’s just slavery where everybody is forced to be the same. When it comes to solidarity…imagine instead of being forced to |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-14|participate in the society that you’re born into…imagine a world where the only communities that you’re a part of… are ones that you’re voluntarily participating in. Communities of like minded people. People with similar goals where your cooperation with the group TRULY benefits you and THEIR cooperation with the group truly benefits them. Solidarity. Well solidarity needs both liberty and equality to be able to function properly as well…there’s no way people can voluntarily form these groups if they don’t have the liberty to choose which group actually benefits them…and without equality being a focus…in the sense that these groups are between people with an EQUAL voice within a democratic decision making process…without that there’s no way for a GROUP like this to be able to be formed in the first place. Now there’s SO much more to talk about with all three of these concepts especially what constitutes EQUALITY, we’re going to get to it in time: the point that needs to be made right NOW at THIS point in the discussion is that to an anarchist we need ALL THREE of these values working TOGETHER. Liberty, equality AND solidarity.And this type of community I just mentioned when talking about solidarity… |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-15|is going to become a CORNERSTONE for how someone might reimagine a society that’s organized by people from the bottom up…one that DOESN’T require a hierarchical authority that’s making all the decisions.Cause see that’s one of the big misconceptions people have about anarchism…the idea that if you’re gonna say we shouldn’t have a typical western government as it exists today…which by the way is JUST to say that we shouldn’t have a government in the way humans have been doing it for about the last 5000 years or so…if you’re GONNA say that well then THAT must mean that to an anarchist… what THEY ACTUALLY want is ZERO organization between…a world where everyone’s in it for themselves…raw survival…everyone just build yourself a shack, heat up frozen bean and cheese burritos until a flock of toothless people come and take everything that you have.  But nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists are EXTREMELY… supportive of organization between people, to them it’s CRUCIAL for any society to be able to function…the DIFFERENCE is that they’re not fans of organization that’s formulated from the top down. Again the TYPE of organization that they think works better, the kind of organization we ALREADY |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-16|USE in many procedures in everyday life…is going to be organization from the bottom up. Let’s talk about an example of how that might be possible. A common strategy you’ll see when imagining HOW an anarchist society may be structured…is that again instead of the top down model…you’d have what’s often described as a “decentralized, federated network of communities BASED on free association.” That’s one anarchist ALTERNATIVE that’s been offered to government as we know it. Now let’s break down each PIECE of that description. First up: communities that are based on free association…well that’s the idea we just talked about that it’s not only possible, but it’s actually BETTER in the eyes of an anarchist for people to ONLY have to be a part of the communities that they voluntarily participate in. Communities that ACTUALLY benefit you and everyone ELSE when you’re a part of them without having to have some sort of forced membership, coercion, the inability to LEAVE if you realize one day that the group’s no longer helping you. Why can’t things be structured in a way where you’re only part of communities that you want to be a part of? Yet ANOTHER interesting question for the dinner |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-17|table. Anarchists generally think this is possible…and to most anarchists to respect liberty, equality and solidarity… a community like this would HAVE to be… a democracy. But not…a representative democracy…not a democracy where one elected official can be lobbied and bribed in a disproportionate way…but a TRUE democratic collective… where the power is at the base…where the people being impacted BY the decisions that are being made… are the ONES VOTING on what should be DONE. One person, one vote, BY the people that are affected by the vote. That’s the way it should be to many anarchists. Now, USING this same process…no doubt there’s gonna be situations that come up where leadership is needed in these communities to do any NUMBER of things…to keep things organized, to logistically execute the decisions that are voted on, WHATEVER IT IS…WHENEVER there is a TEMPORARY NEED for someone to hold more power than others that are in the group…there would NOT BE a permanent, elected position, like in many CURRENT forms of government…there’d be no fixed office that ALWAYS needs someone occupying it to be able to justify its existence…instead in THESE sorts of communities…a TEMPORARY need for power, would be met with a |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-18|TEMPORARY…delegation of responsibility to a person or a council of people that the group democratically sees fit.Then, this temporary office… would be heavily supervised by the REST of the community that they’re representing…where IF the community… SEES what these delegates are doing with their power and at any point doesn’t like what they see… the community can democratically and instantly, REVOKE the position of power and hold a new vote for how to proceed in the best way moving forward. Thi s is FAR more flexible. Keep in mind again that ANY individual that thinks the group’s become corrupted by some sort of faction that’s controlling the vote numbers…that person can LEAVE and join another community at any time. What this setup DOES to an anarchist is FLIP the power dynamics on their head. Instead of the people in POWER being able to monopolize the lives of everyone else regardless of how much they even KNOW about the REALITY of the lives of the people they’re governing…this setup would make it so that… if ANYTHING…the BASE of people make the life of being a governor… something slightly annoying… because at EVERY step along the way if you’re in a position of |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-19|AUTHORITY…you HAVE to justify your power to the rest of the group and SHOW why it's best for everyone. This is why a lot of anarchists say that to even CALL this type of setup… authority…is just inaccurate. It’s no longer DOMINATION…it’s delegation. The people in positions of “power”... are really just a mouthpiece for the base of people who TRULY hold the power… if this was the way it was setup…the delegates would hold very little if ANY power themselves. Now let’s slow down for a second. Cause somebody could say BACK to this anarchist…well that sounds great in theory. I mean, sure, we all KNOW that a direct democracy where everybody gets one vote works well when it comes to SMALL groups of people, when you’re deciding what movie to go see or where to go for dinner. But how is this in ANY WAY… SCALABLE to a society… where there’s 100 million people whose interests we need to consider? Well let’s remember… our description of an anarchist alternative to the forms of government we have today…organization would happen under what we called: a decentralized, federated network of communities based on free association. Well to answer the question from the |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-20|skeptic here…THIS is where the decentralized, federated part of the equation comes into play. I mean, as you can imagine… in a complex society that’s trying to manage life in the best way we possibly can… there would naturally be… a LOT of these communities between people that would be formed. Under one POSSIBLE way of setting things up, that itself would ALWAYS be open to improvements: but under one strategy there would BE no centralized federal AUTHORITY that organizes all these communities together. Again, the organization… would come from the bottom up. Communities could form unions with other communities insofar as both of them benefit from voluntarily agreeing to work together. These unions could form together into confederations through the same voluntary process…with the same flexibility to back out should things not be working well. And WHEN decisions inevitably need to be made for this larger federated, network of communities…the SAME bottom up organization can be applied at THIS level as well. A decision needs to be made. A mass assembly will be held for all the people that are involved in that decision. If necessary there will be an election of temporary, highly supervised delegates to act as mouthpieces FOR the |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-21|federated community… where once the decision has been carried out and put into practice in the world… that temporary office would dissolve, until a new one is needed for a NEW decision that needs to be made. Again the THINKING is that the power is ALWAYS in the hands of the people that are being impacted by the decisions. Someone could say back to this well that type of setup worries me…doesn’t this just potentially fragment people and their ideas for how society should function even further than they already are fragmented right now? Doesn’t this setup just put us on the fast track to total chaos and a lack of order in the world? Don’t we NEED clear political lanes for people to fall into?Well, an anarchist might reply with the fact that the exact same thing… was said about democracy, during times when monarchies and oligarchies were all the rage. It used to be said: what kind of moron…would ever open the floodgates and allow EVERYONE a voice when it comes to how society should be structured…you know, THEIR version of molotov cocktails and spiky bracelets from hot topic…what’s that thing from Game of Thrones…the average person voting? Hahah. |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-22|What should my COW get a vote as well? Should my DOG get a vote? Come now. Anyway, REGARDLESS of whether you’re sold on alternative forms of organizing society…if you’re entirely NEW to anarchist thought there may be some incredibly clever people out there who SEE where all this is going. IF what an anarchist is concerned with is hierarchical authority WHERE EVER it may exist in a society. IF we are entertaining the idea that we may be like slaves or other oppressed people of the past who have been indoctrinated to see the power structures that are dominating our life as NECESSARY for life to be able to function. And KNOWING that for the last several episodes we’ve been talking about Foucault, and Deleuze and Byung Chul Han and Agamben and this contemporary analysis of WHERE power actually EXISTS in the world. Some anarchists may ask the question: are we maybe focusing a bit too much here on the government side of things? I mean to worry about the government and the level of control it has over our lives…to talk about the abolition of the state…the recreation of a new one…is that even the world we LIVE in anymore?What |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-23|we have in TODAY’S world to someone like Noam Chomsky is something entirely different than when anarchism took off in the 19th century. We have privatized tyrannies… that we call corporations… that control the materials that people build their life with. We have a media apparatus… that controls the ideas… that people build their worldview with. We have more brick and mortar institutions that control the norms and taboos we use to understand ourselves and each other. ALL of these…are NOT things that the government oversees and controls. In fact the reality is that the government is often too weak to protect people AGAINST tyrannies like these… because a tyranny doesn’t need to have the same checks and balances as a government often does. Corporations end up controlling the government, not the other way around. Media often dictates who even gets elected. What someone like Noam Chomsky would say to anyone talking about ABOLISHING the state tomorrow…is that WHEN you say something like that…you INSTANTLY relegate yourself to some sort of distant academic seminar where you’re no longer even TALKING about making things better in the world AS IT IS. To say that you’re clearly not even interested at meeting people |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-24|at WHERE THEY ARE NOW. He says maybe if we HAD something like that federated network of communities all capable of cooperating with each other AFTER the abolition of the state…MAYBE then, that could be a conversation to be had. But as it exists right now…we don’t have anything that even REMOTELY RESEMBLES that. Like if your GOAL is to ultimately dismantle unjustified forms of power…which is more of a problem he would ask? Corporate power or state power? He says ALL that you’d be doing if you overthrew the state right now…is just make corporations even MORE powerful on the other side of it. To him, just taking an inventory of where we’re actually at…the more REALISTIC, SHORT term goal is to USE the regulatory power of the state… to dismantle the sweeping authority of the private sector and its GRIP on people’s lives. You know as imperfect as it may be…to Chomsky, sometimes you need ONE authority in the short term… to help deal with another authority that’s more urgent and problematic. Anyway when you consider all the thinkers we’ve been talking about lately, the digital panopticon and you have a contemporary understanding of where power actually lies in the world…anarchism |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one-25|is going to be a really interesting lens to view it all through… and the people INVOLVED in the discussion are going to have some pretty INTERESTING alternatives for how things may be structured in an alternative way WITHOUT hierarchical authority. These recent episodes can LEAVE people a little confused as to how we’re even supposed to move forward…well from this anarchist perspective: what if the REASON it’s confusing is that we’re just ASSUMING that ANY path forward NEEDS to include hierarchical authority…and that it’s THAT limitation, that’s ultimately holding us back from having clear answers…not unlike Malatesta’s child that we talked about that was born with their legs bound together… that somehow learned to walk anyway. Next episode we’re talking about MORE of these alternatives, criticisms for WHY these ideas can never work, the responses to those. What I ask of you listening is this: I see you…that type of person out there that’s listening where you have that feeling in your stomach of wanting to ask a question for how ANY of these anarchist ideas would work in certain situations you can imagine. PLEASE…for the sake of next episode being as good as possible for EVERYONE…if you HAVE one of |2023-12-28T15:37:24.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one|192|Episode #192 - Should we overthrow the government tomorrow? - Anarchism Pt. 1 (Chomsky, Malatesta)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-0|  So the other day I was taking a walk around my neighborhood with my friend at like 4:30 in the morning. It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, well below freezing. Ground’s covered in frost and black ice, it’s pitch black outside… I’M sliding around everywhere trying to get a morning walk in like a COMPLETE genius here. And my friend who doesn’t read any philosophy turns to me as we’re doing this and he says, so this GUY you’re talking about…Giorgio Agamben…what’s HIS whole deal, you got any idea of what you’re gonna be saying yet? And right when he asks me im walking downhill and I hit a giant patch of black ice…and im just sliding downhill…and as I’m Tokyo drifting down the sidewalk of my neighborhood my head’s in another place and I say back to him well look one of the FIRST things you gotta know about him is that he’s not a big fan of human rights. That’s what I led with.And he looks at me and he’s like WHAT? Who is this guy Chairman Mao? What kind of monster is against the concept of human rights?And this is such a PURE response from |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-1|anybody that’s been RAISED in western culture… that’s come to know human rights as one of the most SACRED things we have as part of our political process. It was MY response when I first heard about these ideas years ago. And it can be so mysterious at first: why would a philosopher like Giorgio Agamben be SO CRITICAL of something with such good intentions behind it? Something that really at bottom is just trying to protect the dignity and freedom of people going through dangerous times. Well if you’re somebody that’s been listening to every episode of this podcast for about the last year or so…you MAY remember, there was ANOTHER person we talked about recently that ALSO had a problem with human rights. I’m talking about Simone Weil. One of my personal FAVORITE philosophers, a woman Giorgio Agamben did a dissertation on when he was in school, a woman he has a tremendous amount of respect for, and someone it’s NOT CRAZY TO IMAGINE…may have INFLUENCED this AREA in his thinking. See Simone Weil thought that human rights… no matter how GOOD they may make people feel…they’re actually missing the point when it comes to what it is they’re trying |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-2|to protect. One of the PROBLEMS she says is that human rights fundamentally are always trying to reduce humanity… down into the language of legal or commercial discourse. But that’s impossible she thought. Remember she had a GREAT example written down in one of her journals. She says to imagine a farmer that goes down to the farmer’s market. He’s gotta BUNCH of chickens. Look at all those chickens. And she says this FARMER…has a LEGAL RIGHT…to SELL his EGGS down at the farmers market for as much as he wants…he has the right to sell them for $20 a dozen if he wants to. He ALSO has the right to go out of business when no one wants to pay $20 for a dozen eggs. Now CONTRAST that she says with someone forcing a woman into prostitution. Now of course EVERYBODY knows this is wrong, it’s SO wrong there’s not a debate to be had. But Simone asks in her journal: is the REASON it’s wrong to FORCE a woman into prostitution because she has a legal RIGHT to NOT be a prostitute? Well no, that’s LUDICROUS she says. The reason it’s wrong is because you’re robbing some piece of what |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-3|it is that makes her a person. You’re stealing her humanity in a way. Her POINT is: there’s a sense in which trying to DEFINE these sorts of things in LEGAL TERMS…ends up MISSING something that’s important about the whole process of protecting human dignity and freedom. Now Simone Weil ALSO says that rights are obviously not the most EFFECTIVE thing in the world…you want PROOF of this just look at any time an actual Hitler or Stalin comes around…any time a country decides to declare war and invade the neighborhoods of another country…those human rights go right out the window…they’re worth about the paper that they’re written on. Both Simone Weil and Giorgio Agamben ask in their own unique ways: could there BE a more effective strategy out there?This is the place in the conversation that Giorgio Agamben starts to develop his OWN critique of human rights. And fair warning: some of these points are no doubt going to move the needle. I’d just like to take a second to remind everyone that I am not a political ideologue, in fact far from it. I am but a humble podcaster. I like to entertain ideas that I don’t necessarily accept. |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-4|That’s part of why people COME to this podcast to get exposed to things that make them see the world from a different angle. Just ask that you direct all scathing responses to [email protected].  Anyway, BUILDING off of Simone Weil’s point he’d START by saying of COURSE people like Hitler are not gonna follow your little Geneva Convention. Yeah turns OUT… a guy with THAT kind of mustache is not exactly persuaded by you sending him a strongly worded letter expressing your disapproval of him. And not ONLY are human rights not even CLOSE to stopping people from being brutalized, just look at what’s going on in the world right now. The REVERENCE…the unquestionable RESPECT that people in the western world GIVE to human rights…you know, the kind of thing that makes people go WHAT? Who wouldn’t be for human rights…that respect…Agamben thinks it ACTUALLY makes human rights a concept… that creates new opportunities for imperialist regimes all around the world. How OFTEN… are human rights used as a smoke screen or a justification… to invade a country and HIDE the true intentions behind starting a war? I’ll try to give a balanced perspective here: how about the United States invading Iraq |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-5|in 2003. There were a lot of reasons that were given for WHY we should be invading a country that didn’t attack us. Weapons of mass destruction was a reason given for sure. But another MAIN REASON that was GIVEN was that we are the LEADERSHIP of the world…and we have to spread DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM to that entire region. That we have a moral obligation to SAVE these people who are being tortured under the regime of Saddam Hussein. In other words: it was a humanitarian effort! Women are being treated horribly. Apostates are being murdered. We were TOLD in the United States on our TVs that they didn’t even have a SINGLE KFC in ALL of Baghdad. It had gone too far. We HAD to do something about it. You know it WASN’T because we wanted a foothold in the region, to have more political control over an area of the world that we wanted to have influence over . It wasn’t that we wanted to control the oil wells that if Saddam Hussein chose to manipulate them would have potentially catastrophic effects on the global economy. It wasn’t any of THAT. It was that we CARE too much |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-6|about the people. Sarcasm aside, to Agamben, you can SEE how the LORE that surrounds human rights can sometimes be used as a smoke screen for the TRUE political motivations that underlie an aggressive move like that.Said I’d be balanced so let's take an example from somebody NOT the United States. MANY examples of the same thing going on from both Russia AND China. Take Russia invading Ukraine in 2022…or Crimea in 2014. Again, MANY reasons were given for that invasion. But one of the primary ones was that ethnic Russians, Russian speaking people who mostly IDENTIFY as Russian are VICTIMS of terrible human RIGHTS violations going on in Ukraine. WE gotta go SAVE em! We have a moral duty, as an incredibly caring and loving nation, to protect these innocent people who cannot protect themselves.  You know it’s NOT because Ukraine is the only neutral state between you and NATO and that NATO has been progressively trying to court Ukraine for years to join their alliance. It’s NOT because Ukraine has been increasingly modernizing in recent years, more capable of refining their own oil and that if they were to do that you wouldn’t be the only oil state in |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-7|the region that could provide energy to Europe. It’s NOT because just geographically from a military strategy perspective taking Ukraine to the western mountain pass just puts you in a far better defensive position SHOULD a war ever break out between Russia and NATO. It’s NONE of those things. We JUST…CARE about the people, they have rights…and by golly do we just gotta respect the bajesus out of em. Once again sarcasm aside…Agamben would say look at how the TRUE political motivations can get obscured when you can dangle something like human rights in front of people that most of us think it would be insane for ANYONE to ever question. Human rights…have been the CENTRAL focus of western politics SINCE the end of the Cold War. Which raises ANOTHER problem with human rights to Giorgio Agamben…because they’re so monolithic in western political discussion…they actually end up PREVENTING us from talking about issues that are ALSO very important. Say income inequality, climate change, nuclear proliferation. All issues SOME would say are neglected, because MOST of our time is spent agonizing over which human rights should be written down on a piece of paper, just to be TRAMPLED on by the NEXT people |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-8|in power. To Giorgio Agamben, the path forward is not that we need to just rethink or redesign human rights. HE thinks we’re far past that point…that BECAUSE of the way HISTORY has gone down we have SO MANY preconceived ideas about rights… that the BEST solution to HIM… is to find a political strategy that actually moves BEYOND human rights to something better. What sorts of preconceived ideas well how about that our rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…you now the assumption that our biological lives and free life choices… are things INTRINSICALLY tied up in what the government should be protecting. This connection permanently leaves room for what Agamben calls Biopolitics, where it’s seen as NORMAL for the government to control aspects of people’s bodies, how they USE their bodies, what sorts of lifestyles are acceptable for a citizen to have. When EVERYTHING about our human rights can become politicized…to Agamben it becomes easier for people to accept that it’s the government’s job to be controlling these things. But there are OTHER preconceived ideas about human rights. How about our assumption that human rights are inalienable, self-evident, some say God given…this is the kind of language that is |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-9|USED…people will that there’s something universal about them that applies to every person in every POSSIBLE situation…but if you were to just ANALYZE that extreme, oversimplified statement…you’d recognize that these are fundamentalist views. Nothing, not even human rights, can EVER be universally applied like that because the CONTEXT of every situation matters…but good luck convincing people of that have grown up in a fundamentalist culture. Agamben would say IF you think these human rights are SO effective at protecting people’s dignity and freedom…just consider a couple things: NOT ONLY… how quickly something people have so much confidence in disintegrates the second something extreme happens, but ALSO how quickly people are to suspend somebody ELSE’S sacred human rights the second their government labels them an enemy of the state.More on that in a second, now if the START of this episode has been a bit HEAVY of a topic for you don’t worry, next up, Agamben’s gonna dial it back a bit he’s gonna talk about something a little lighter, little more upbeat. How about we move along to…Nazi concentration camps in WW2 Germany. THAT seems like a pretty good direction to go in. He says you know it’s funny…MOST people when they |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-10|think back to the Nazi concentration camps in WW2…most people are appalled; they’re disgusted. NOBODY out there…wants to see something like that happen again, so we remind ourselves of the images, we REFLECT on what human beings are capable of in their worst moments and we continue on with our lives proceeding with EXTREME caution in this area, NEVER AGAIN. But what Giorgio Agamben would say is that while that MAY be how a LOT of people see it. To SOME people out there…what happened with the Nazis was not some historical anomaly that they’re disgusted by…no, specifically to people who are in positions of power, whose LIFE it is to find more and more effective ways of controlling people…to THESE people Nazi concentration camps were an absolute masterclass by Adolph Hitler in how to make an entire RACE of people into a subhuman class that he can THEN do anything he wants to… and FACE no legal consequences. In other words to Giorgio Agamben there are certain people in power…that took INSPIRATION from the model of the concentration camps. The way THESE people think about it…look the OPTICS of the concentration camps may have been bad, the death marches, millions of |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-11|people dead and everything…but they ALSO think what if we could take… that political sleight of hand that Hitler used to JUSTIFY the concentration camps, mold it into something a bit more subtle, but STILL be able to control people in a way where their basic rights are violated, and TECHNICALLY everything we’re doing is perfectly legal. You’ll see the SAME STRUCTURE of Hitler’s concentration camps manifest in completely MODERN political strategies in the year 2023. We’ll give plenty of examples, but to see the similarities, to Agamben…we have to start by asking a pretty philosophical question…we have to ask what EXACTLY…are you TAKING from someone…when you FORCE them into something like a concentration camp?Ultimately to answer this… Agamben is gonna reference a couple ideas from Aristotle about what constitutes a free and dignified human life. Two concepts in Aristotle’s work… that are OFTEN seen as connected together…the concepts of Zoe and Bios. One simple way of thinking of these two things is that Zoe is the part of human life that we sometimes call the PRIVATE realm…and Bios is what we often call the PUBLIC realm. Zoe is the ability for someone to live privately, at home, with autonomy over |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-12|their own biological, natural life. Bios is the ability to participate in society PUBLICALLY or politically, to have legal representation, the ability for someone to participate in a way of life that they choose for themselves, at all. Now BOTH of these are crucial elements if you want to have freedom and dignity.  And to Giorgio Agamben, when someone is thrown into one of Hitler’s concentration camps…BOTH of these crucial elements of life are robbed from them…and they end up existing somewhere OUTSIDE of these categories, where they’re still ALIVE…but they’re essentially already dead. As they continue to exist…he says their lives are STILL PART of the political discussion that’s going on…but they have no political representation or ability to participate. They HAVE physical bodies that they’re using to move around…but they HAVE no right to privacy or CONTROL over that physical body. They exist in a place of purgatory…what Agamben calls Bare Life. And human rights written down on a piece of paper don’t APPLY to people in this spot…because the way they GOT there the FIRST place…was because somebody in a position of power, say Adolph Hitler, DECLARED a state of emergency during wartime, SUSPENDED civil liberties, SUSPENDED civil rights, |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-13|legal due process…LABELED an entire GROUP of PEOPLE…either an enemy of the state, a terrorist, ASSOCIATED with terrorists, an enemy combatant…doesn’t really matter WHAT it is, POINT BEING…the political maneuver here… is that once you can get people into THIS TYPE of dehumanized place…Hitler realized you can do WHATEVER you want to them…and it’s all technically LEGAL under the laws of that country.This is an extension of a criticism FIRST put forward by the philosopher Carl Schmitt. And if you remember from the episodes we’ve already done on him…he was not a big fan of constitutional, classical liberal democracies like the ones we see dominating the western world today. He thought that whenever you have a constitution…and you have checks and balances built into your political system so that no one president can ever change anything too much…that SOUNDS great and all. But IN PRACTICE he says…whenever something sufficiently BAD ever goes down in the world…ALL that actually happens is the people in power declare a state of emergency…and then they get extra-constitutional power to be able to do whatever they want anyway. So is the constitution just another example of something like human rights that makes everybody FEEL really |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-14|good…but whenever push comes to shove its worth about the paper that it’s written on?Executive orders, wartime operations without the approval of congress, the patriot act, unwarranted surveillance…these sorts of things are NOT the state of exception or the state of emergency…to Giorgio Agamben… these days the state of exception has become the RULE. And when he TALKS about this stuff in the early 90’s people actually think he’s insane. Like a conspiracy theory guy. NO government out there is declaring a state of emergency and then suspending civil liberties and due process. But by the mid 2000’s… that SAME book that he wrote that people thought he was crazy for…became one of the most cited academic resources in the world for the beginning of the 21st century. So let’s talk about some REAL WORLD EXAMPLES of this political maneuver being used in practice to control people. And I want you to picture a spectrum. Where on ONE end of the spectrum you have Nazi concentration camps, a very ABNORMAL, EXTREME example of this political tactic being used…and on the OTHER side of the spectrum are examples of this political tactic that are NORMALIZED, things  we experience every day. Something like |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-15|the digital panopticon we’ve been talking about, something SO NORMAL and routine… that people can actually be LIVING in it and not even REALIZE that it’s going on. We’re gonna talk about ALL the different shades of gray that exist BETWEEN these two extremes… with each EXAMPLE I’ll take it down one more NOTCH into something that may seem more NORMAL to us. And just as a heads up: NOT EVERYBODY is gonna agree that all of these are examples of this same political maneuver being used to control people. People are gonna fall off at every notch that we go down as the examples get further away from the concentration camp and more and more normalized. But I really think… this is a GOOD way to find out where you stand in agreement with Agamben’s critique…because an exercise like this will show you the boundaries of where you think this IS a valid point he’s making, and then also where it seems like maybe we’re talking about something entirely different. See, Agamben’s gotten some backlash in recent years where his critics say he is trying to apply this theory to areas where it’s not really appropriate. Then again no doubt SOME |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-16|of you out there will see this as a perfectly valid breakdown of the CORE political strategy at work in all of these different examples. So if we START at Nazi Concentration camps…a real world example that’s one step DOWN from there… could be something like Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib. The United States declares a war on terror, they invade Iraq, they invade Afghanistan, there is special power GIVEN to people in a state of war, the people in power DECLARE a certain TYPE of person an enemy combatant or a terrorist…and WHEN they’re captured, they can be taken to a place like Guantanamo Bay Cuba where they instantly become an example of this class of person that’s treated as though they’re subhuman and are DENIED of both their public and private life. Meaning they’re not protected by the rights of their home country, they’re not protected by the rights of the United States, they obviously don’t have any political representation, as prisoners obviously they don’t have a right to privacy, they can be waterboarded, they can be forced to listen to the soundtrack of Frozen 400 times in a row, which, any parent can tell you is actually worse than |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-17|being waterboarded, point is they can be locked in a cage with no due process and ANYTHING can be DONE to them…simply because they’ve been labeled an enemy combatant, through this political maneuver that Agamben says is becoming more popular. So that’s ONE example…let’s take ANOTHER step down and talk about something a LITTLE more normalized in the world: how about police brutality against african americans. COULD it be said that this is ANOTHER example of police officers or people in power…that LABEL a particular group the ENEMY…where in SOME cases they choose to ROB them of due process and legal rights…in OTHER cases they DENY them a private life by increased patrolling where they live, shakedowns, demanding IDs, could it be said that this is the SAME CORE POLITICAL STRATEGY being used AS was used in 1930s Germany? Some people may say that it is. Others may say we’re talking about something entirely different. Okay. ANOTHER example…and again let’s move in the direction of things that are more normalized to us…something that EVERYBODY listening to this can relate to: how about the stay at home orders and the lockdowns that went on during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Needs to be |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-18|said at the top here: THIS, is one of those areas that some people start to disagree with Agamben and his characterization of what was going on. What Agamben says is that while obviously being told to stay home and get a vaccine is NOT the same as being forced into a Nazi concentration camp…this is a PRIME example of the same kind of political maneuvering where people are DENIED of their rights. People in power telling citizens they can’t move around in the world freely, they can’t go to work, they can’t practice their religion the way they want to, they can’t bury their dead in some cases. To Agamben this is a clear example of the government declaring a state of emergency, and then USING those augmented powers to deny people the ability to participate in a public way of life, to DENY people access to a private life with autonomy over their body by mandating that people get a vaccine and a card signed off by a doctor to be able to eat in a restaurant, AND it creates a situation to him where the people in positions of power can make an ENEMY out of you if |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-19|you don’t play along, and then come after you disproportionately simply because this is a public health emergency. This is ALSO a great example he thinks of how NORMALIZED this suspension of civil liberties has BECOME to people…because just look at how QUICKLY most people were to ACCEPT that this was just their new way of life.Now the people that disagree with Agamben here will say that when it COMES to suspending civil liberties in the interest of public health. The INTENT behind the actions of the people in power…MATTERS A LOT. They’ll say to even TALK about Nazi concentration camps in the same sentence as COVID restrictions…just starts to come off as disingenuous. The intent behind the Nazi concentration camps was to exterminate an entire race of people off the face of the planet. The intent behind covid restrictions…was to SAVE lives. It’s just not the same they’ll say. And again I leave it up to YOU the listener to decide which of these you think are valid and which ones are overstepping. But Covid definitely is one that HAD to be included on this list just because of how outspoken he’s been about it in the last couple years.Moving |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-20|on though, another example…little more normalized. How about something like international travel? Giorgio Agamben refuses to travel into the United States anymore. He actually used to have a prestigious position at NYU…but in the aftermath of 9/11 they were going around to NYU employees and asking them for their fingerprints as a way to ensure security…he didn’t wanna have any PART in it…so he QUIT and never came back. And this is the SAME line of thinking… that makes him refuse to travel to the United States to this DAY. Because when you’re TRAVELING to the United States from another country…say you’re coming from Kazakhstan. Beautiful country. One of the most underrated on planet earth right now by the way. But let’s say you’re coming from Kazakhstan to the US…WHEN you touch down on US soil…you are not protected by the laws of Kazakhstan where you came from…you are not protected by the full rights that someone in the United States has…technically you haven’t even ENTERED the US yet. You exist in a place of purgatory… where customs agents DON’T have to honor your privacy or legal rights. They can take fingerprints from you, they can demand documentation, they can take |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-21|pictures of you and upload it to image recognition software, they can search through every square inch of your bags…and by the way every square inch of every orifice on your body if they decide it sounds fun that day. ALL of these things just PERFECTLY REASONABLE in the interest of national security…but the SECOND that person coming into the country steps out of customs onto US soil…the police CANNOT just walk up to you and demand your fingerprints or documentation if they don’t suspect you of a crime. Yet ANOTHER example Agamben thinks of this political maneuvering that MANY people have just come to accept. The LAST example I’ll give is the life of an average citizen IMMERSED in the sort of digital panopticon we’ve been talking about on the SHOW recently. COULD it be said…that if you live in a country where money is directly tied to politics…and unless if you’re a multi-millionaire or a billionaire you feel politically disenfranchised and unable to really affect anything…where in that life your every movement is captured by CCTVs and you come home from work every day and are subjected to surveillance on a level where you don’t really have access to |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-22|privacy. Is it a STRETCH… to say that the digital PRISON of the panopticon puts people in a similar sort of place where they’re denied the sort of free and dignified life that people experienced in the past?Regardless of which of these examples you agree with or don’t…Agamben would say it’s important for us to continuously look at the events that are going on in the world… the people that are being essentially kept in prisons or concentration camps without having ever been convicted of a crime and NO hope of getting OUT of it…he’d say it is crucial…for us to remain CAUTIOUS of this political strategy being accepted as just something that’s completely normal. How many people are being locked in cages both literally and metaphorically…simply because someone in power, somewhere decided to label them as associated with an enemy group?Another interesting criticism Giorgio Agamben has of modern western society is that if you pay attention to the way that MANY of the institutions are designed…the whole thing… SEEMS to be organized in a way that doesn’t really value potential. And he means potential in a very general sense you know you can imagine a seed…and in actuality it |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-23|is just a seed. But it ALSO ABSOLUTELY carries with it a sort of latent POTENTIAL to become something like a fully formed plant. There’s a relationship between potentiality and actuality and modern society, it seems, doesn’t really value potential in a meaningful way. In fact it seems to actively want to SQUASH potential. Some examples of what he means:Take the public school system for example. There’s a way this business is conducted. Teachers don’t look at each and every student, identify their strengths, see their potential as an individual and what they may be able to go on to do to impact society in the greatest way possible, and then encourage that potential. No, what WE do…is we give kids a standardized test at the end of the year to measure how many facts they’ve memorized. And what happens in practice is that teachers… will often teach the children JUST so they can do well on that standardized test where the numbers matter. Their potential as a human being… isn’t even really something that crosses their minds. But then that kid graduates from school and ends up going into the work force. Corporations are ANOTHER example of a place in |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-24|modern society where they’re not looking at each employee and considering what they have the potential to grow into, maybe even revolutionize the company someday. No, companies focus… on productivity, profit, they give employees very clear tasks with very clear deliverables that they have to accomplish every day. Another example can be found in prisons. When someone commits a crime…WE focus a lot on the punishment side of things…we focus on them doing the hard time so they can pay their debt to society. In other words: there’s no focus on the prisoners as individuals with potential, where their time in prison could be spent becoming something that could benefit society the most when they get out. We focus on punitive measures.  Anyway POINT is: potential to Agamben is this MASSIVELY important thing if we EVER want to visualize society in a way that makes the world a better place…and yet it can SEEM sometimes like entire institutions don’t want to consider alternative, potential realities at all. Potential, to Agamben, although it can SEEM like such a simple thing, potential actually has the power to BE something that people can be UNITED under, a common banner that’s trying to bring about a |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-25|better world where the typical TRIBAL dividing lines between people aren’t as pronounced.Case in point: take the example of the civil rights movement in the United States.When people gathered together to march on Washington, protesting the way things were and imagining the potential of a DIFFERENT world where a group of people were treated better…NOBODY out there was saying no you can’t MARCH with us today for this cause…because you come from the wrong country. Or you don't LOOK the right way. Or because you’re not the right gender. Or because we disagree about some OTHER political issue. No EVERYBODY regardless of what immutable characteristics they were born with were welcome as long as they believed in the vision of a potential world where things were better. Well if a subcommunity like that can be formed on the basis of encouraging potential…what if an entire COMMUNITY or society could be formed on that basis? Anyway…there’s gotta be at least ONE of you out there that have been listening to the show lately…hearing all this discussion about power dynamics and these investigators like Foucault and Agamben talking about how power operates in the modern world…and there’s gotta be someone out there who |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc-26|has had the thought that what the REAL problem is…is NOT that we have all this increased surveillance, that there’s a connection between knowledge and power, or political tactics that dehumanize people…this person may think the common denominator in all these tricky situations we find ourselves in…is really the fact that there’s a centralized, sweeping authority that we call the government…that exists at all. Maybe we don’t even NEED something like the government. Now Anarchy…AS a political philosophy…things like this are some of my favorite things to read about and get into if for NO other reason…that if you’re someone who’s never done a deep dive on it on the surface…it just sounds so STUPID…as a philosophy. Like there are FEW things better in this world than hearing an idea that sounds RIDICULOUS from an outsiders point of view, sitting next to the fireplace with a book about it and being like well let’s see where THIS thing goes. It’s an episode I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. It is IMPOSSIBLE for it to not be valuable to the discussion we’ve been having. At WORST this is going to show you that anarchist…is not just a phase you go |2023-12-05T16:15:11.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6gzkc|191|Episode #191 - The modern concentration camp and the failure of human rights. (Giorgio Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-0|  So today we’re gonna be talking about a person many consider to be one of the greatest philosophers alive today. We’re gonna be talking about Martha Nussbaum. And I want to START today with a story. It’s a story that’s VERY important to Martha Nussbaum. It’s a story she said earlier on in her career… she’d sometimes be kept UP at night THINKING about it and it’s disturbing implications about what it is to be a person. It’s a story where we won’t fully understand just how relevant it IS to this digital panopticon we’re living in…until about the end of the episode today. The story is a play… written in ancient Greece by the great playwright Euripides…the story we’re talking about today is called Hecuba. Now Hecuba…was the name of the historically famous Queen of Troy. Mother of Hector…you know that guy Brad Pitt killed in 1997. Wife of Agamemnon, but a formidable person in her own right. Now MOST of her story is pretty tragic her kingdom falls, her husband is killed, most of her children are killed, she’s sold into slavery…but through all this bad stuff she had ONE hope that she was holding onto… which |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-1|was to save at least ONE of her sons, his name was Polydorus.So she sends him off to a different kingdom away from the battle with a bunch of gold, she tells him to go talk to the king in the city of Thrace he’s a friend of mine and ask him to protect you until everything dies down with the whole fall of Troy stuff that’s going on. So Polydorus leaves, chest full of gold on the back of his cart… and that’s the last she sees of him. Time passes. She finally is able to make it BACK to this kingdom that she sent him to. And as she comes up to the beaches of Thrace… right where the waves hit the sand… she sees a dead body. She looks a little closer and she realizes…it’s her son Polydorus. And IN that moment… Hecuba knew EXACTLY what had happened. Her friend, her SUPPOSED friend the King, seeing the fall of Troy…took advantage of that opportunity and KILLED her son… and stole all of the gold. Now the GRIEF… that overtook her in this moment…QUICKLY turned into vengeance. She rallies some other women she knows… she lures the king into a |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-2|particular place… and then she proceeds to poke his eyes out and blind him for the rest of his life. Now the Gods… to PUNISH Hecuba for what she did…they transform her… into a dog. In fact the play ends with her just barking, running down the beach going after a frisbee…and at the END of the episode we’ll talk MORE about WHY she may have turned into a dog but for now maybe it should just be said:What an incredibly tragic story. And one it’s pretty cool that thousands of years later…somehow we can still RELATE to a piece of this. I mean you can just feel the agony she must have felt in that moment. It’s worth asking: what would YOU do if a friend betrayed you and murdered your child? Would you poke their eyes out? Maybe some of you in these emails that I read sometimes. But most of you would probably go for a more reasoned approach, I mean two wrongs don’t make a right. Maybe Hecuba in this moment…should’ve managed her feelings a little bit better. Maybe…she should’ve taken a page out of the book… of Stoicism. Now in the last ten years or so…Stoicism…as a |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-3|way to manage your emotions and feel better about the things you can’t control in the world…has EXPLODED in this digital panopticon. Not a surprise really: in a world where media companies are constantly trying to MANIPULATE your emotions to get you to either vote a particular way or to get you to buy something…it’s practically therapeutic…to have a philosophy like Stoicism that tells you you can’t control ANYTHING that happens external to you in the outside world…ALL you can control is how you REACT to it. As many of you know the three big Stoic ethicists are gonna be Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. And at the core of Stoicism is the idea that we can BE in control of our emotions. IF we’re vigilant and IF we reason well enough…it is possible to realize the futility of getting MAD at someone when they cut you off in traffic for example. It is POSSIBLE…to not feel the embarrassment or despair when you lose all your money in the stock market. This is possible, because ultimately to the Stoics ALL that an emotion is…is a JUDGMENT you’re making about something that’s happening EXTERNAL to you… that you’re then LINKING to whether it’s |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-4|good or bad for your OWN personal projects. But ultimately, we can’t CONTROL anything that happens outside of us. This is why to the Stoics a LARGE part of your EFFORT if you’re a wise person…should be to spend time recognizing that fact… and then detaching yourself from these worldly outcomes that you can’t control. At the root of this idea is a concept that’s existed for thousands of years in western culture. It’s the dichotomy between reason on the one hand…and the emotions on the other. This is something you see ALL throughout the history of human thought. And most of the time the way thinkers see it is that REASON…is something that is good, something to be cultivated…and the EMOTIONS are something problematic, something seen as closer to our ANIMAL nature. And it should be said you don’t even need to BE a philosopher to arrive at these kind of insights, a stay at home mom with three kids for example…you know the kids are running around the house doing god knows what…putting syrup all over the family cat…mom’s out of her mind, and the mom might say to herself in that moment you know what? I can’t freak out right |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-5|now, I have to just stay reasonable. I’m in charge of this house. It’s a very understandable response to push down the emotions and try to be as reasoned as possible, some would just call that maturity. Now again the Stoics FOLLOW this line of thinking and while I think there’s definitely a lot more nuance to their views on emotions than just THIS…they certainly make distinctions between which emotions are worth having and which ones are a waste of time. Despite that: there’s definitely a general sentiment, within Stoicism, that the emotions are something to be skeptical of and that REASON is the direction that ANY wise person should be headed. And ESPECIALLY for people who READ Stoicism and don’t do a very deep reading of them…to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum…a common ATTITUDE that starts to emerge… is that the emotions are things that are essentially USELESS…and that the WISEST person in the WORLD would have the ability to always keep them in control, never feel them for very long, REASON their way to every decision that they make, and be the cliche… of a Stoic. That A STOIC person is a GOOD person. In other words: morality…has no ROOM |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-6|for the emotions. They just cloud your ability to be REASONABLE, so they’re just a waste of time. But is that true? Martha Nussbaum has a LOT of respect for Stoicism…especially what she sees as an absolute GENIUS insight that they had about the nature of what an emotion is…all those years ago. Remember it’s a judgment…about something external to you…that you determine whether its good or bad for your own personal projects. Or as SHE puts it emotions are appraisals… of an external object as being IMPORTANT for our needs and well being.But does that sound like something that’s entirely USELESS? You know, maybe in the same way fans of Stoicism today reject the SCIENCE that Epictetus and Seneca were referencing…maybe it’s possible… to take the CORE of this great theory of emotions…and make it better. Maybe we can take ALL THAT WE’VE LEARNED over THOUSANDS of years in the natural sciences…APPLY it to Stoic ETHICS…and come out the other side of it with a BETTER and more COMPLETE version of an ethics, or what Martha Nussbaum calls: Neo-Stoicism. I mean really WHY should we be beholden to the philosophical bias and scientific ignorance of some dudes that lived over a thousand |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-7|years ago? THEY never would’ve wanted that. Do you really think if Seneca was alive today he wouldn’t be using the BEST science that was available to him? Of COURSE he would.So knowing that, the REAL question becomes: what are the AREAS of Stoicism that need work? Well, you just have to look at the areas of their thinking… that the stoics NEVER could have possibly thought they were overlooking at the time. One of these for Nussbaum is going to be the OBVIOUS connection between people’s emotional responses to external events…and their own individual, unique personal HISTORY. That’s something the stoics didn’t spend much time on at ALL. Quick setup here that’s very important to understand where Nussbaum is coming from. She’s going to say that the emotions are NOT something that we should just be writing off. They’re what she calls geological upheavals of thought a reference to the author Marcel Proust. And FAR FROM being completely irrational acts of self indulgence…she says if you PAY ATTENTION to emotions and the objects emotions are caused by…emotions are always infused with judgments about value, importance, intelligence, discernment…put another way emotions are ABOUT the things that are important to us. For Nussbaum not |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-8|ONLY are emotions NOT these purely bodily, animalistic spasms that we’re having…not ONLY are they important cognitive judgments we’re making…but they are also absolutely NECESSARY for ANY sort of advanced moral thinking. IF ANYBODY… thinks they’re ridding themselves of their emotional reactions to things and then making moral decisions PURELY on the back of REASON…they’re FOOLING themselves.See again, we HAVE this history in western thought at least since the Enlightenment where the story is that we’re ALL these individual, autonomous, RATIONAL beings and then we rationalize and we get all rationy and then make rational decisions. We draw a line in the sand when it comes to reason and the emotions. They’re separate. We want to BELIEVE this STORY that we are entirely self-sufficient. But what HAPPENS when you accept the emotions as a valid compass to guide your behavior in the world is that you REALIZE how NEEDY human beings really are. Think about it: an emotion to the stoics again is an appraisal about whether something external is important for our needs and well being. So say your car gets stolen. You have a negative appraisal of that event, like hey, I need my car to get around in |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-9|my life, this is a horrible situation… and you react with feelings of anger, embarrassment, frustration, everything understandable. Now the stoics, say Epictetus, he would tell you you’re a FOOL for reacting that way…that you had no control over whether your car was gonna get stolen, or ANY external event for that matter, and that what YOU gotta do… is REASON better, cultivate a little more wisdom, and eventually you’ll ACCEPT your lack of control over that situation. But what Martha Nussbaum would say is uh no. You DO, actually need, a car. This is a frustrating situation. You can’t just drop down into the lotus position and teleport into your cubicle. Look at any disenfranchised group in this world that is suffering right now because they lack resources. Our lives REQUIRE external objects and material resources to be able to function and the emotions are when we make appraisals about that reality: cars yeah, but also food, medical care, how bout PEOPLE. See that’s the other thing here…some people would love to believe they can be some kind of stoic dalai lama and just live in complete non-attachment from everything in the world around you…but in reality our lives are ALWAYS |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-10|contextual. We are ALWAYS LIVING in a network of people and things that MAKE our lives possible at all. We are fundamentally NEEDY creatures to Nussbaum. We NEED external things and we NEED the help of other people to function. Again, the emotions are the judgments we make ABOUT these external states of affairs. This may be why some people RUN from their emotions because it forces them to recognize JUST how needy they really are.Now NO one here is saying that emotions should somehow get a free pass. Nobodies saying that Uncle Murray gets to go off on the whole family… cause they didn’t get him gluten free potatoes last night. What Martha Nussbaum IS saying though is that if we write off the emotions COMPLETELY as useless…we’re gonna be missing out on a LOT of great information that can help the development of ourselves and society…and more than that if we ignore the emotions…we’re NEVER going to have a STOIC ethical theory that does a sufficient examination of the emotions as part of the human experience.  So that said, getting back to where we were before…one of the things Martha Nussbaum thinks is MISSING from the classical Stoic analysis |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-11|of the emotions is how connected they are to an individual’s own personal history. Not the LEAST of which she thinks is how they connect to our psychological development when we are infants. Again developmental psychology…was just NOT on the radar of the early Stoics. They barely even TALK about children she says. She says children in ancient Greece and Rome mostly spent time with their mothers or other kids. These older philosopher men weren’t even really THINKING about children. And don’t make that joke btw. The one you’re thinking of right now. Nonetheless SINCE then we’ve made a LOT of progress when it comes to understanding the moments in development when this emotional repertoire is formed. And that’s her term by the way…emotional repertoire. For example she says, take psychoanalysis. And by the way you don’t have to take psychoanalysis. If you don’t like Freud…insert any contemporary advanced theory of developmental psychology here and her point remains the same. The POINT is: we can take the core of Stoicism… and USE modern psychology to make it EVEN BETTER. Again this is Neo…Stoicism. Now HER example uses a version of psychoanalysis she says as babies…we are ALL born into the world these little… tyrants. |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-12|Little dictators. THAT’S how a newborn baby sees the world. It’s ALL about them…they’re VERY narcissistic when they first come out of the womb…and why wouldn’t they be? From the first time they open their eyes EVERYBODY AROUND THEM is just there to take care of them. But then what happens is inevitably that day comes in the life of the newborn where they witness their mom tending to somebody ELSE that’s NOT them. And to Nussbaum…this COULD BE the moment…where that child feels the feeling of JEALOUSY, for the very first time…when they’re FORCED to come out of their default narcissism and recognize that they are not the only person in the entire world. And this extends into later in life…where we all have individual personal histories that go on to affect our emotional responses…you know maybe you have a relationship in high school that doesn’t go so well…and you bring that experience to bear on every subsequent relationship you have throughout your entire 20s. The POINT is: to Nussbaum, the Stoics weren’t THINKING about the true level of emotional variance that’s possible here, OR about the foundations of emotions in developmental psychology. Wouldn’t a philosophical approach LIKE Stoicism, aimed at helping |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-13|people deal with emotions…wouldn’t it ONLY stand to get STRONGER if we incorporate our understanding of these things rather than just REJECT the emotions altogether?So that said: let’s TAKE a Neo-Stoic line of thinking and let’s EXAMINE some of the emotions so that maybe we can understand their value better. And one of her absolute FAVORITE emotions to write about…an emotion she says may in fact be INFINITELY VALUABLE if we were to examine it more closely…is the emotion of COMPASSION. You know it’s weird because…in today’s day and age…compassion is seen as something that is universally good. Like if someone told you they weren’t a fan of compassion you’d just be like uh okay, I guess. IN TODAY’S WORLD. But in fact throughout most of human history especially among philosophers…compassion hasn’t really been SEEN in that favorable of a light. The Stoics didn’t like compassion, Kant didn’t like compassion, Nietzsche was very skeptical of compassion. And it’s not because they were uncaring people.For example the Stoics weren’t big fans of compassion and it wasn’t because they were cruel. They just thought there were other virtues that accomplished what compassion is going for in a better way. The way THEY saw |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-14|it: WHENEVER YOU ARE compassionate to someone…you are in some way compromising their integrity… as a person. You’re making them weak. You’re robbing them of an opportunity to lift themselves up on their own and be stronger the NEXT time something bad inevitably happens. Martha Nussbaum defines compassion as a “painful emotion...occasioned by the awareness of another person's (or other creature's) underserved misfortune.” In other words: somebody you see that’s in a really bad spot…and it’s not their fault their IN that spot. But as Nussbaum says… to the Stoics…barring rare exceptions…anything BAD that is happening to you in your life is ultimately…ALWAYS your fault in some way. You should ALWAYS internalize it. And even in some hypothetical world where you could get judge judy to come down from her mansion and give a final decree that this was not your fault…then to the Stoics it is STILL your responsibility to react to it in a way that is wise…not just lay there and wait to get rescued by a compassionate person walking by. ANY TIME, a person is compassionate…it WEAKENS the other party. It UNDERMINES their INTEGRITY as a human being. Equality means that we allow people to DO things on |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-15|their own. So to the Stoics…compassion isn’t the answer…maybe its guidance, maybe it’s mentorship, encouragement…but not compassion. To Kant compassion was a problem, because it was too particular or too acute to ever be something that’s useful for moral guidance. Remember Kant’s the guy that among many other things is looking for MORAL ABSOLUTES in his work. If something is truly good…then it should be good in every situation we can possibly imagine, no exceptions. But with compassion…compassion is something that happens between two people, in an EXTREMELY limited situation. One person looks at ANOTHER person and feels compassion for their situation and is compelled to DO something about it…but to Kant it’s just too particular and chaotic to EVER be a proper guide to moral action…once again…he’d say if what you want is justice…there’s just BETTER VIRTUES OUT THERE that get you to that end goal than compassion. Nietzsche was skeptical of compassion for a different reason. He took a very close look at it, untangled the anatomy of it…and he said if you look closely…what you’ll see is that compassion…is often CLOSELY connected to feelings of hatred or resentment. Reason being is…the more COMPASSION you feel for the person who |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-16|is being hurt in a situation that is ENTIRELY not their fault…the more hatred and resentment you often feel towards the people who are RESPONSIBLE for them being there. Compassion BREEDS resentment in a way. Martha Nussbaum is very aware of ALL these criticisms. But she thinks the UPSIDES to compassion FAR OUTWEIGH any of these relatively small downsides. Because COMPASSION to Nussbaum…is NOT JUST an emotion…it’s not a virtue that GUIDES people to a perfect system of morality…in fact for anyone looking for moral principles that apply across every situation…to Nussbaum moral principles are just summaries of good judgment that happened in separate moments…moral life cant be explained in the rigid language that philosophers typically like to use, it’s too situational, too complex. She thinks literature or prose is amuch  better place to look for moral guidance, but all that withstanding… compassion is NOT intended to be some end all be all GUIDE for the right thing in every situation…but it IS to Nussbaum…potentially a VEHICLE for EVERYONE…to learn and understand the ESSENCE of morality itself. Let’s talk about what she means. Think back to her example of the baby. Little tyrant dictator laying in the crib. Wah Wah Feed Me |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-17|my bottle you pestilent swine. We all start out these NARCISSISTS that can’t see past our crib. But as we get OLDER we start to CARE about the people in our family…we start to appreciate our parents for taking care of us…we start to make close friends that we care about…and a lot of people don’t really go too far past that. Point is: it is VERY EASY for people to care about their immediate friends and family. But the challenge of ANY SOCIETY Nussbaum says is: how do we get people to care about the people they don’t know… and most likely will never meet? Well if you want to solve that problem…far from CANCELING all emotions reasoning about it…Nussbaum says allowing ourselves to FEEL compassion and even cultivating it…compassion can serve as a VEHICLE for people to expand their moral horizons…to expand the numbers of people that they care about hopefully to the entire society, maybe even the world. More than that compassion is not just good for the individual and the social dynamics of a society…Nussbaum says compassion is potentially good as a compass for the policies of society. What she means is, you know, we used to write |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-18|these social contracts where we try to come up with rights that apply to people in all situations no matter WHAT. But isn’t it also possible to use compassion as a tool for finding the rights that are still LACKING in the structure of society that maybe we need? Maybe by looking around us, and noticing that we FEEL compassion for a certain group that’s in a situation that’s not their fault, maybe that can point us in the right direction when it comes to developing the next iteration of rights that we’re going to try to get passed. The interesting thing… is that the classical stoics are actually not too far off this Neo-Stoicism of Martha Nussbaum. I mean sure, Epictetus went off on compassion. Marcus Aurelius has some choice words for anyone expecting compassion. But in OTHER areas of Stoicism like their concept of Cosmopolitanism…being a citizen of the world…there seems to be a pretty direct line we could draw here if a Stoic’s willing to accept the emotions as a valuable source of information. But this DOESN’T just stop with compassion. Let’s continue this Neo-Stoic examination. Take one of my FAVORITES from Martha Nussbaum…the relationship between the emotions shame…and |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-19|guilt. Now everybody listening to this has felt both shame and guilt at some point in their life…and at first glance…these two emotions actually FEEL pretty similar, just when it comes to the sensations you have in your body. But Martha Nussbaum says if you could CHOOSE which ONE of these you’re going to HAVE…ONE of these emotions…is FAR BETTER, FAR MORE PRODUCTIVE than the other. Let’s give an example to explain. Say you’re driving down the road…and you’ve never caused a car accident in your life. You’re PROUD of that fact. You often go to parties holding your plastic red cup telling people don’t worry I’m not cringe but I’ve NEVER gotten into a car accident in my whole life. You like that? But say on THIS particular day FATE has a different plan for you. Some crazy confluence of events goes down, you’re speeding down the road you look down at something in the car, you look up and there’s just no way to stop, you rear end the car in front of you that’s stopped at the red light. Now everybody’s okay, that’s not a problem, but the first thought that goes through your head in that moment…is one |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-20|of SHAME. No! This isn’t the driver I am! I’m the kind of person that NEVER gets into an accident. I’m so ashamed. What IS that emotion? If we take a Neo-Stoic line…what PRECISELY is going on there? Martha Nussbaum says whenever you hold yourself to any sort of IDEAL…any sort of standard of perfection…then SHAME…instantly becomes a PERMANENT possibility. That’s what does it. If you could accept that you make mistakes sometimes then you wouldn’t be so thrown off by not being perfect. More than that…at the CORE of that feeling of shame…is a narcissistic mindset. It’s someone still trapped in that baby mode where you’re not thinking of anything but yourself…in this case your own driving reputation. Shame… is ALL about you. It’s all about this IMAGE you have of yourself…and OMG it got THREATENED here…what am I going to do? This is why the ANTIDOTE to shame Nussbaum says is just to RESTORE the kingdom of narcissism that you USED to be in where you have these impossible standards for yourself and you convince yourself you’re perfect again. Now picture that EXACT SAME CAR accident situation…but now imagine you rear end them you get out of the car everyone’s fine…but |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-21|THIS time…the feeling you have is that you feel GUILTY…for making a mistake that messed with someone else’s life and could’ve hurt them. That’s a VERY different FEELING to Martha Nussbaum. Because while shame is ENTIRELY self-focused…GUILT…has a BUILT IN acknowledgment of another person’s rights. If the way you fix shame is to convince yourself you’re perfect again…the way you fix guilt is often by paying reparations…by DOING something that makes things right between you and whoever it was that you hurt.Now NEITHER of these emotions are fun. Of course no one wishes it upon anyone to have to walk around either with shame OR guilt…and I hope…that all of you out there NEVER have to feel guilt or shame EVER again in your life. But odds are you’re GOING to. And if you HAD to pick one of these…Martha Nussbaum says guilt is just a far better emotion to feel when it comes to building a society, where people are thinking of each other and not just themselves.In fact, next time you feel shame about something…if you remember… try to reframe it in that moment in terms of guilt. Try to think about the person you affected…rather than your own |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-22|personal reputation with yourself. Again this is a Neo-Stoic sort of switch you can make that we NEVER would’ve had access to if we weren’t open to examining the relationship between emotions in a way that just doesn’t make sense in classical Stoicism. So this SAME line of thinking…that we shouldn’t view emotions in a univariate way…you know this older idea of THESE ARE THE EMOTIONS OF MAN…and you should use REASON to QUELL the universal feeling of SADNESS you’re having right now…when in reality no… everybody has a different personal history and that’s going to play into how you should be RESPONDING to your emotions…this SAME line of thinking though…for Nussbaum is going to get taken from the individual…and it’s going to be applied to the political. Martha Nussbaum thinks there are BIG problems in the way modern western culture at least in the United States is thinking about political philosophy. See our ENTIRE way of thinking is built on social contract theory from the 17th and 18th centuries. Now SHE says the great social contract philosophers, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau…they’re DOING their work very shortly after the Feudalism of the middle ages…and this moment in history DEEPLY biases the direction their |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-23|thinking goes in. Because the middle ages is FILLED with people being BORN into positions of power or a lack of power…one of the chief priorities of these guys was to come up with a political philosophy that STRIPPED EVERYONE of their advantages that are given at birth, plop them down into a state of nature, and philosophize about what kind of agreements these people would’ve come up with. And they arrive at are usually arrangements where a bunch of individual, autonomous people come together out of mutual benefit. What this creates though, she says, is a dynamic where the GOOD CITIZEN…is someone who produces…someone who produces in a way that benefits everyone out of mutual advantage. And that’s GREAT if you’re only talking about healthy people that are roughly equal in physical and mental power. But that’s not the world we live in. There are a LOT of people with very serious physical and mental disabilities. Not the LEAST of which she says…is YOU eventually. When you were a child you needed to be protected by maternal care. When you get OLD you’re gonna need a greater level of protection as well. To Nussbaum, we can’t structure our theory of justice |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-24|around the assumption that everyone is a healthy, relatively intelligent person. We can’t educate CHILDREN as though all of them are the same. We can’t build CITIES in a way where the disabled can’t even hope to flourish. What we NEED she says is a strategy more centered around maximizing human capability. Or what she calls her Capabilities Approach.The idea comes from the politics of Aristotle. Aristotle believed that a well designed political situation is one where it provides each and every person with what they need to become capable of living a rich and flourishing life. So what does that look like? Nussbaum gives several examples all of which have their own explanations but to put it briefly she says we need to give people the ability to love and care for a family, THAT’S part of a flourishing life…the ability to get an education, to think well…the ability to be moral and choose well. The ability to have play or recreation. The ability to develop the senses, to not be stuck inside all the time, to have a relationship with nature. And not the least of which what we’ve been talking about for most of the episode…an important part |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-25|of a flourishing life for Martha Nussbaum…is the ability to develop emotional capabilities without just having to deny them or medicate them away.Now nobody here is saying let’s have the government DO THESE THINGS FOR people. She’s just saying let's structure society in a way where people have the CAPABILITY to make these things happen. A good metaphor is maybe a person in a wheelchair and they have to go into the bank to try to get a loan for a house…but the entrance to the bank is just a set of 30 stairs up to the front door. What are they supposed to do?To Nussbaum…not everyone is equally smart or physically healthy. And if you just IGNORE these facts and stick to your social contract and say okay, okay we set the rules…now everybody go out there and FLOURISH! You’ll be setting society up in a way that’s much more difficult for people that DON’T fit that homogenized picture of a productive citizen. Anyway, so now let’s return back to Hecuba…the story we started the episode with. Why did the gods…turn Hecuba into a dog after she sought vengeance and blinded the king that killed her son? Well see up until |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-26|that point in the story… Hecuba had gone through a lot of hardship. Husband died, most of her children died, she’s no longer queen…but up until that point she stayed a  moral person who was more or less stable when facing adversity. But IN the moment that she realizes her friend had killed her son just to be able to take the gold…something CHANGED inside of her. All of a sudden…everything and everyone was untrustworthy.Her moral life as Nussbaum says ,was based on being able to trust people and things that were NOT under her own control. If she can’t even trust her FRIEND to not murder her son for some money…then NOTHING can be trusted anymore and her life TRANSFORMS into something where she RETREATS into vengeance. When she takes out the eyes of the king and the Gods turn her into a dog…it’s a metaphor in the play and the meaning of it is that she’s a DOG now because she’s sacrificed some important piece of what it is to be a person by retreating into the simplicity of vengeance. Martha Nussbaum explains it best here, quote: “I think it’s clear that this comes about not because she’s a |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-27|bad person, but in a sense because she’s a good person. Because she has had deep friendships on which she’s staked her moral life. And so what this play says that’s so disturbing is that the condition of being good is that it should always be possible for you to be morally destroyed by something that you couldn’t prevent. To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world; an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances. In circumstances for which you are not yourself to blame.”Maybe you have intense feelings like Hecuba. Maybe there’s something in your life that’s bothering you. But there’s a sense in which what the play is saying is that part of being a good person…part of life as a human being on this planet if you’re not a scum bag…part of it…is going to be dealing with those feelings, continuing to trust and not retreating into something that’s more simple or comfortable. For Hecuba it was vengeance. Made her life real simple. But it could be anything you could retreat into apathy. You could retreat into |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf-28|drugs, alcohol. You could retreat into video games. Any of the siren songs that the digital panopticon gives people to keep them sleepwalking. Doesn’t really matter what it is. But sometimes we DO these things because it allows us to tap out of life for a bit. So that we don’t have to face the true tragedy of it all. Consider this applied to the political realm. How easy is it to look at what’s going on in the world, feel helpless and then retreat into cynicism? To come up with some LINE you tell people at parties, oh the people in power are the people that would need to police their power so there’s nothing you can really do. Then other cynical people nod their head because it takes the responsibility off of them too. Whether it’s denying the emotions and retreating into reason. Or whether it’s denying vulnerability and retreating into distraction. Much like our friend Byung Chul Han talks about if there is ANYTHING that is going to improve your situation as a person living in a digital panopticon…it’s not a religion of reason. It’s not a religion of cynicism. It’s Vida Contemplativa. The contemplative life. To look fearlessly |2023-11-28T20:24:45.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-m83zf|190|Episode #190 - Are emotions a waste of time? - Neo-Stoicism (Martha Nussbaum)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-0|  So whenever you hear people talking about dystopian futures, or a digital panopticons…one of the ones that’s ALWAYS gonna get brought up… is George Orwell’s 1984. It’s a classic. It’s like the Casablanca of dystopian futures, I mean I’d like to DIE in it… if I could…it talks about a surveillance state that is ALL encompassing; not unlike the one we just referenced on the freedom vs security episode we did. But to the philosopher we’re talking about today, Byung Chul Han… 1984 for a LOT of people out there TALKING about this stuff… MAY actually end up BEING a bit of a red herring. See to HIM… there’s a LOT of different TYPES of dystopian futures that could happen out there…and if you’re only looking for ONE of them…you may end up MISSING the one you’re actually LIVING in. To Han, The FAR MORE ACCURATE literary example of a dystopian future that resembles the world we’re in is NOT Orwell’s 1984, but Aldous Huxley’s 1932 book called Brave New World. See IN Brave New World…it’s a whole different VIBE than 1984…First of all, the people in the book live under a single, unified, GLOBAL world state. Everybody…is ONE, in |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-1|the book. And when someone dies, there aren’t people having BABIES to be able to REPLACE them…the GOVERNMENT replaces them… by growing a NEW human inside of a hatchery. Far less messy. Then, this new person, from birth is psychologically conditioned and engineered by the government for a particular ROLE in the society, depending on what’s NEEDED.After a certain point…once people come of age…the government GIVES everybody a hallucinogenic drug called “soma”.... that they TAKE every day. Now, it’s not MANDATORY to take soma in the book…but BASICALLY EVERYBODY in the society DOES. It makes you calm, it makes you compliant, it makes you FREE of ANY SORT of negative EMOTIONS that might OTHERWISE come up and mess with the stability of the society, and to Byung Chul Han, this is a FAR BETTER METAPHOR of how OUR digital panopticon is operating…because it’s not a matter of GUILTING people by pointing CAMERAS at them all day FORCING them to fall in line…you just make people DEPENDENT upon a drug… and then WATCH as they continue to take that drug VOLUNTARILY day after day after day.  It’s funny a LOT of people ENJOYED last episode of the show. LOT of comments. Some |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-2|people didn’t like Han so much, LOT of people did. But one interesting comment that was recurring from the people that LIKED what he had to say was simply: WHY haven’t I heard of this guy before? I mean, it’s strange he has such a powerful message WHERE IS HE in the news media?Well there’s a FEW reasons for that. For one, his work hasn’t been translated into English until fairly recently. But maybe the MAIN reason that an INFORMED person like yourself wouldn’t have HEARD about Han before this…is that his ideas don’t really fit NEATLY… into the often oversimplified political narrative that dominates western media. I mean if Byung Chul Han’s work could be REDUCED into something that was 100% conservative or 100% progressive…he’d be a SUPERSTAR. The PROBLEM is: his WORK isn’t that SIMPLE…and if your work isn’t that simple…it’s tough for media that’s DRIVEN by ideology to know where to even PLACE you. It’s tough for them to know whether you’re ACTUALLY an ally…like are you fully committed, son…to agreeing with us on literally everything that ever comes out of our mouth…are you gonna PLAY BALL? They don’t like his ANSWER…. to that question. The GOOD news though is |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-3|that for a show like this…we’re driven by an ideology of curiosity if anything. We’re just trying to entertain ideas without necessarily accepting them, right. So in THAT context… he fits in PERFECTLY here!Now I have an OBVIOUS statement to LEAD this episode with, but it NEEDS to be said. BECAUSE Han is a guy that’s doing his work in TODAY’S world…he is often COMMENTING on things that are going ON… in today’s world. So over the course of this episode…there’s gonna be several things we’re talking about that NO DOUBT, you’re ALREADY gonna have heard about…and more than likely…you’re ALREADY going to have intelligent explanations for WHY these things are occurring. That’s FINE. But just KNOW that Byung Chul Han SEES many of these things through a totally different lens than OTHER people in the media landscape…he sees them THROUGH the lens of his work that we STARTED talking about LAST episode. So whether it’s the crisis of democracy, conspiracy theories, fake news, rites of passage…there’s going to be SEVERAL things we TALK about in this episode… just KNOW that Byung Chul Han sees all these things as manifestations of that ethos that we talked about on the last episode…and |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-4|that in THIS episode… we’re talking about the actual examples, the actual POINTS OF CONTACT he sees in HOW society is changing. And BECAUSE there’s gonna be SEVERAL of these if I HAD to sum it up and put it into a thesis for the sake of giving this episode some initial structure…I’d say this: That the RISE of narcissism. The rise of AUTHENTICITY as a neoliberal slogan everyone should be AIMING for. The rise of this TECHNOLOGY that EVERYBODY USES that makes EVERYONE’S EXPERIENCE of reality far more shallow…ALL of these things combined, to byung chul han, are making several, VERY IMPORTANT THINGS that bind and connect society…completely disappear. In philosophical terms WHAT he says is disappearing…are CONSTRUCTIVE forms of negativity…and each one of these things that is disappearing is going to have a different book that he writes that is dedicated to it. Now we’ll KNOW what he MEANS by constructive negativity by the end of the episode. Point is: to say that everything that binds or connects people is being destroyed by the structure of society…that’s a pretty BIG statement. So I want to START with that big statement…and I wanna take some time here to give a few examples of what |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-5|he’s talking about and just so we don’t SKIP anything… I want to START from the place that we ENDED LAST episode on. Seems PRETTY uncontroversial to START by saying…that what HAPPENS when you give people this MESSAGE that they’re a project to be optimized… that they’re a commodity that needs to IMPROVE their market value by constantly learning and growing… that THEY ARE the SOLE person that should be determining who they are… and that if anybody ever tries to tell them who or what they should be, to not LISTEN to that person…when you divvy out that message to people in mass…Byung Chul Han would say it should NOT be SURPRISING… if what EMERGES from that is a society where people generally just consider the existence and opinions of other people LESS, because they’re focused on themselves,… and are more SKEPTICAL towards community bonds that try to tell them what to do, because THEY decide what to do. And IF these INWARDLY FOCUSED people are more SKEPTICAL of things that BOND communities together…then one of the COMMON THINGS in the world this type of person is gonna NATURALLY be antagonistic towards… are the very rituals, and traditions, that communities often |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-6|participate in. Put another way, to Byung chul Han: a TRAP that’s common for a narcissistic person to fall into…is that they will REJECT, social norms, morays, customs and politeness…and they will reject these things simply on the BASIS…of WHO ARE ANY of these people… to TELL me HOW I should be acting anyway?If you want a good example of the KIND of thing he’s talking about…think of something like not using swear words in public. Alright. On the one hand: not SWEARING in public…at bottom… is a COMPLETELY ARBITRARY thing to just IMPOSE upon people from the outside. Oh you got your little list of FORBIDDEN WORDS I’m not supposed to say? What do they make the OLD people uncomfortable? Tell grandma to go eat her lemon drops do her crossword puzzle and let the adults talk the way we’re gonna talk. I’m not just gonna grovel at your feet because you have certain SOUNDS your parents told you were BAD and it makes you feel uncomfortable. That’s nonsense. But on the OTHER hand Byung Chul Han might say…ARBITRARY as it may SEEM…NOT USING swear words in public…is actually a token of respect, to a collective social agreement we all have… that |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-7|BINDS us all TOGETHER in some way. I mean what are we REALLY doing when we have an unwritten agreement that we’re not gonna DO something, ANYTHING? In PART what we’re saying is look: we’re ALL OUT HERE okay? We’re all STILL ALIVE. We’re all waking up every day, taking a shower and going to work to try to make this whole thing operate. This whole THING by the way…that we ALL recognize when it comes down to it is a pretty FRAGILE experiment we’re running on a RAZORS EDGE that in many ways RELIES on the cooperation of everyone continuing to play along. Not using SWEAR words in public… in SOME societies… this is an EXAMPLE of one SMALL THING we all DO… that’s part of the GLUE that HOLDS that society together. In other words, the function of the ritual in this case….is that it BINDS and CONNECTS people together in some way. Now, from the perspective of the narcissist…they don’t SEE it that way. Or at least it’s HARD for them to. From THEIR perspective this is just something that is being IMPOSED upon them from the outside…this is people TELLING me what I can and cannot do. NOBODY should |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-8|be doing THAT. And because they SEE everything ONLY in terms of that immediate, transactable VALUE to them…it’s harder for them to see the VALUE this has to the GROUP, more broadly. And OBVIOUSLY…this extends FAR BEYOND just the use of swear words in public. Take ANOTHER example in the realm of being polite to each other.You’re walking through the grocery store, little to fast with your cart. You come to an intersection, someone else from another aisle comes to that exact same intersection. You almost hit each other, but you don’t. You guys both give the wave, pardon me, sorry about that. The smile and you move on. Why do we DO that? WHY waste your time DOING that? From a narcissistic point of view…THAT person doesn’t OWN the GROCERY AISLE. I have every right to be there just as much as them. Why SHOULD I…pay deference to any other person on this planet? I didn’t ASK them to be in the store. Who are THEY to have a problem with ME? If THEY have a problem with ME then THEY never have to see me AGAIN! This INWARD obsession. You could SEE it this way… but rituals, customs, norms to Byung |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-9|Chul Han…these are things that have served an absolutely CRUCIAL social function all throughout human history… and again the prevalence of this sort of narcissistic rejection of them AMPLIFIED BY TECHNOLOGY…is leading to their disappearance. So let’s get DOWN to it: what is a RITUAL…to Han? Cause the EXAMPLES I’ve given so far have just been in the domain of politeness, but as you can imagine: Rituals fall under a much broader class of definition. In his book called The disappearance of Rituals…Han says he thinks a good way to describe the function of a ritual is to call it a TEMPORAL TECHNOLOGY…for HOUSING oneself. Now on the surface… to some that can sound overly philosophical, like CRINGE levels of effort are going on here to try to sound smart…like JOB interview level cringe…but it actually makes a lot of sense if you take a second to break it down. If a technology… is something we often make that provides some sort of use for us as PEOPLE...then a TEMPORAL technology...temporal meaning related to TIME...a TEMPORAL technology, a ritual… is something that does something USEFUL for us when it comes to the progression of time. To get CLOSER to what he means Han |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-10|says: Rituals are in time… as THINGS are in space. Let's think about what he means by that. Imagine being in physical space…with no physical things around you. What would that be like? Well it would be like being in parts of outer space, you’d just be floating in whatever direction you were. There would BE nothing to walk on. There’d BE nothing to reach towards, there’d be no STRUCTURE to any of it at all. Well so too with rituals when it comes to the passage of time, for Han. A society without rituals…or an individual LIFE without rituals…is one where EVERY SINGLE MOMENT BLURS into the NEXT. There’s nothing to mark the end of ONE activity or period in life and the beginning of another. There’s no CLOSURE for han. Think of the common complaint that you’ll hear in modern society from people who say there’s no such thing as a rite of passage anymore. They’ll say that there’s no RITUAL or no specific MOMENT that graduates someone from BEING a child into an adult for example. Well WHEN that’s a possibility for someone…the RESULT of this sometimes is that it becomes possible, to just sort of SIT in adolescence for |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-11|a decade of your life… until you become so embarrassed by your life that you finally move into the next stage. It’s a bad look. But more IMPORTANTLY… it’s a TRAGIC look to Han because this is just one example of hundreds in the modern world where people don’t ever get CLOSURE of ONE period of their life anymore…SO THAT they can be fully immersed, and present in the NEXT period of their life. They just get stuck in purgatory in a lot of ways now. The reason these transitions between different moments in life and moments in our day are important…is because at a deep, deep level…we are narrative creatures to Han. We make sense of our lives… we get meaning from things that are going on in the world around us when they fit INTO some larger, structured story that we have. To Byung Chul Han: RITUALS PROVIDE that structure. They are THE THINGS that give MEANING to time…and turn time into anything other than just an endless succession of separate moments that are all unrelated to each other. How does any MOMENT come together into a meaningful PLOT point in the story of your life? When han says a |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-12|ritual is a temporal technology for housing oneself, this is what he MEANS by it. Which is ALSO to say in more philosophical terms: that they provide a certain amount of what Han calls CONSTRUCTIVE…negativity. They SLOW TIME DOWN in a way…to Han, things that bind or connect communities together: things like trust, integrity, commitment, faithfulness…these are NOT INSTANTANEOUS things. These are things that take TIME to develop. Which then allows deeper connections WITHIN the group as a WHOLE to develop. To Han, Life loses ALL STABILITY…when everything in it… is short term. Rituals provide that more long term structure.  So again…from a narcissistic perspective when you’re just wrapped up in your own life…it’s SO EASY to be a critic of a ritual that is not immediately benefitting you in a transactional way. It’s so easy to make fun of these morons doing a flash mob. Really…did THAT make you feel special there? Waving your hands around messing with people’s day? Or these sheep doing the 10 millionth gender reveal party this year. Oh I WONDER if it’s gonna be BLUE!On one hand it’s so easy to make fun of em…but on the OTHER HAND… if you’re somebody whose life is practically devoid of |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-13|rituals…Go do a flash mob…tell me how you feel afterwards. Laugh at the sheep that are all going off to university for example, but on the other hand GO to a university, immerse yourself in that ritual completely…and tell me how you feel afterwards. To Byung Chul Han: we NEED daily, and life long rituals to help BRING that narrative STRUCTURE into our lives…in a world that’s making it INCREASINGLY HARD to be able to get those things by default. Now, since we’re at this point in the discussion…I want to pivot to ANOTHER one of these things Han thinks is disappearing from society…something ELSE that HISTORICALLY has provided narrative structure and bound and unified people in the process…and what I’m talking about… is TRUTH…the ability for people to arrive at truth or KNOWLEDGE is starting to disappear. He writes about it in his book called The Information Society. First of all it should be said: truth and knowledge…these are ALSO not things to Byung Chul Han that can get INSTANTLY INJECTED into your head with a tiktok or a youtube video…you know, THE SAME WAY when it comes to rituals…where life would otherwise be an endless sea of moments that are |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-14|unrelated to each other if rituals didn’t give them context as part of the narrative of your life…when it comes to developing a cohesive narrative about how reality works…looking down at your phone…and being fed an endless stream of these fragmented bits of information. News stories, social media posts, videos…NONE of this stuff is presented to you in a way… that even ATTEMPTS to link it to any CONTEXT that makes it enduring. That’s a PROBLEM…to byung chul han.  You know in former societies…you’d GET a piece of information about reality.And then you’d HAVE a while to SIT with it…you would contemplate it, you’d consider what it means within a larger narrative framework, you’d weigh those ideas up against the narrative framework of other people and come out the other side of that process with something that was actually ILLUMINATING about reality. But in TODAY’S world he says…with this constant STREAM of information… The STREAM of information… RUSHES PAST the truth.There is NO TIME for anyone to truly THINK anymore, there’s no constructive negativity…because by the time someone gets done reading ONE of these self-referential news stories…it’s now time to read the NEXT news story so that they can stay up |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-15|to date. Your LIFE really becomes like a Mr. Beast video where three seconds can’t go by without EXPLOSIONS. Oh look NOW it’s a treasure chest full of money! Oh look now they’re shooting at each other in an apache helicopter! Byung Chul Han would say you know just try to appreciate how truly DIFFERENT that IS from the way almost every other human being has ever lived. If you were a peasant living in the middle ages for example…the content that you consumed…if you HAD any the external information that you consumed that was gonna potentially influence you…you LITERALLY thought it was the word of God. Your news anchor…was the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE in your eyes. But now…now that we live in the AGE of information…now we just have CNN and Fox…now we have fake news. Now all we have is an endless stream of unverified, contingent, surface level information that doesn’t really illuminate ANYTHING about reality. In fact it does the OPPOSITE, to Han. It further DISORIENTS people. It just produces anxiety. It fragments perception. It relies on SURPRISING people. If you were the weirdo that read a news story in today’s day and age and sat on it for a |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-16|week contemplating it, deliberating…by the TIME you got back to the news cycle you would be so far behind the story wouldn’t even MATTER anymore…and you’d REALIZE in that moment that these stories are not some hard hitting journalism that’s going on… they REALLY ARE just surface level information so the news outlet could have something to put up there on the screen to surprise people and get them clicking. And it’s BECAUSE of this reality of this age of INFORMATION rather than knowledge…that people are just more SUSCEPTIBLE to things like fake news than they’ve ever BEEN before. 200 years ago… fake news could NEVER have been this effective. But BECAUSE people don’t even have the time to VERIFY the LAST story and connect it to a larger narrative before needing to be BACK on their news app being informed about the NEXT story…that SPEED, that ACCESS, that EXCESS POSITIVITY to Han… creates the environment where fake news is not only possible but proliferating. This ALSO creates the environment he thinks, where the rise of CONSPIRACY theories in recent years starts to make a lot more sense. BECAUSE people are LACKING that binding, connecting narrative of TRUTH that has always existed |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-17|before this, now people become so DESPERATE to ACTUALLY have a narrative, that they EVEN start creating their OWN narratives, or latching onto others that aren’t necessarily very sound, but their followers will never realize it ANYWAY as long as we keep FEE DING them so much information they stay in a FRENZY of whatever’s being talked about right this second. If RITUALS are the constructive negativity that slows down time enough to create trust and integrity and other necessary social bonds…then in THIS world where we’re fed just cursory, raw information…CONTEMPLATION is gonna be the thing that slows things down enough to allow for truth and knowledge to be possible. Once again for han…what’s disappearing from society is at bottom, constructive negativity. "Not all negativity is destructive. Not infrequently, forms of negativity such as hesitation, pausing, boredom, waiting, or rage prove constructive, though they are threatened with disappearance in the course of society's increasing positivization"And to move on to ANOTHER area of human life that Han thinks is being disintegrated…the removal of negativity… has actually started to undermine culture…and the places where people in the PAST have gotten their sense of identity altogether. So IF anyone in recent years has made the claim |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-18|that we’re in a period where people feel like they’re in a CRISIS of meaning and a CRISIS of identity all at the same time…if that’s said to be a HALLMARK of our age…here is where Byung Chul Han’s work can start to explain why HE thinks that’s occurring. Because WHEN this neoliberal ethos of questioning outside rituals and norms, when THAT gets applied at the level of CULTURE…what you get to Han…is what we COMMONLY call normal everyday conversation: Globalization. You get an attitude by people of HEY MAN. What’s with all these arbitrary LINES IN THE SAND MAN? What’s with all these BORDERS between people? We gotta open these UP! We gotta stop PRETENDING like these races and nationalities MEAN anything. WE’RE ALL ONE THING, we’re ALL THE SAME!Now it SEEMS like a very inclusive sentiment there… but the SUBTEXT of saying that none of these BOUNDARIES between people are real…is that you’re saying: YOUR PERCEIVED individual CULTURE…the kind of thing that historically people have used for THOUSANDS of YEARS to get BIG pieces of their sense of identity and meaning…the subtext is that, yeah THAT isn’t real EITHER. You have to just GET OVER all these arbitrary DIFFERENCES you’re |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-19|seeing. And NOTICE the connection to LAST episode when Han was talking about the terror of the SAME… and how this attitude eventually SMOOTHS everything out and takes away the rough edges so that NOBODIES disagreeing and everything can keep on being economically productive and efficient. The ENDGAME of a neoliberal ethos of authenticity to Han, is not a bunch of different groups that are coexisting…but seven and a half billion narcissists… all with their own worldviews… COMPETING with each other in complete PEACE. But one thing should be clear: this is not UNITING everyone… to Byung Chul Han. This is HOMOGENIZING everyone. When you push for globalization…by turning EVERYTHING into the same thing…you’re not DEALING with the actual DIFFERENCES between you and the other…you’re just making it so that you never have to ENCOUNTER the other ever again, because now EVERYBODY’s the same. But to Han, this is a BAD MOVE…because there’s such a thing he says as HEALTHY BOUNDARIES between truly DIFFERENT cultures. THAT’S what we should be aiming for. What we NEED, Han says…is MORE what he calls Eros. Now Eros is a term that has been used at several points throughout human history, first introduced in Ancient Greek mythology, Eros represented the |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-20|forces of love and desire at that time. It was used by Freud, Jung, we talked about it in our Frankfurt School series, the important point here so that we don’t get too far off track is that it represents ANOTHER one of these things that bind and connect us together in human relationships…that’s disappearing to Byung Chul Han. Han doesn’t define Eros as love and desire…he writes about it in his book called The Agony of Eros and he calls it at one point “the relation to the wholly other” Not HOLY like in a Biblical sense, but the ENTIRELY other is what he means. We’ve obviously TOUCHED on this piece of his work last episode when we talked about trying to listen to someone AS they are NOT just in terms of how they transactionally benefit you or COMPARE to you…but in their TOTAL difference from you, FEELING, sitting with how uncomfortable that makes you and not trying to get away from it…EROS is the formal name that he gives to it. And notice how EASILY something that historically embodied love… QUICKLY turns into something that TRULY ACKNOWLEDGES real DIFFERENCES in other groups, as they are. If you’re a poetic |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-21|sort of person you really can start to see how the two terms overlap with each other. Differences, to Han, are ABSOLUTELY crucial for any kind of HEALTHY human relationship that you’re going to try to have. On a personal level…if you’re hanging out with a bunch of people that you have ZERO real differences with…that’s probably not a good thing. Well, in the SAME way when a society doesn’t have EROS…a society without counter-weighting voices that truly QUESTIONS itself…a society that has nothing to shake it OUT of its narcissistic inwardness…THAT is an unhealthy society as well. It is horrible…for the IMMUNE system… of a society… for everything to be EXACTLY the SAME he says. We NEED that immunological response…we NEED uncomfortable differences to exist between groups if we want things to remain balanced. Again what we DON’T want…is just just 7.5 billion narcissists all screaming their own personal religions at each other. Another, more POLITICAL, part of the reason it’s important to PRESERVE the differences that make communities possible to Han… is because just from a historical perspective…if there was ever a group that was being treated badly throughout history…and the people IN those groups wanted to DO something to try |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-22|to change their situation…in the PAST it was possible for them to organize, band together and RISE UP to try to make their circumstances better. But as he says, if we get to a place in the world where there is no “we” to be able to  rise up…in a world where people feel like all they do is PLAY and if anything seems WRONG with their life it is THEIR INDIVIDUAL fault for it BEING that way…that is a form of positive power where it becomes confusing how to even get out of it. We NEED communities for people to have that leverage point. And to combine THIS idea with what we were just talking about with the rise of information and decline of truth and knowledge…these are going to be two CORNERSTONES of what is ABSOLUTELY necessary if you EVER want to have a functioning democracy. So if we’re experiencing anything in today’s world that anybody out there may REFER to as a CRISIS of DEMOCRACY. Byung Chul Han is going to point to THIS as part of the reason why. Because the POSSIBILITY, of a democracy EVER working…PRESUPPOSES the idea that people can be reasonably informed about the world and |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-23|then can have reasonable amounts of intelligent conversation with other citizens so that the PEOPLE, can decide where the society goes next. But that’s practically IMPOSSIBLE anymore to Byung Chul Han. We already talked about the absolute dumpster fire of a situation when it comes to staying informed…well most of our COMMUNICATION with each other within modern democracies these days, GOES ON over the bandwidth of social media. In other words…in a place where NOBODY REALLY even TRIES to communicate effectively EVER. Social media doesn’t incentivize REAL communication. There CERTAINLY are no real COMMUNITIES being developed on there. He says it’s interesting…communities of people used to exist historically and the VERY THING that bonded them together were things that nobody in the community really needed to speak about because everybody KNEW what connected them. He says we USED to have communities without communication. NOWADAYS we have communication without community. Once again it’s ALL so OVERLY POSITIVE in today’s climate. It’s all just TALKING, and RANTING and ACCESS to INFORMATION and NONE of the constructive NEGATIVITY that slows things down and leads to productive discussion or actual consensus. As you’re no doubt seeing by this point: to Byung Chul Han… there are just AREAS of human |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-24|life that are DIFFERENT… when the world is dominated by positive power and this shallow kind of technology. And the EFFECTS of this spread into practically EVERY CORNER of society that you can possibly imagine. In his book The Transparency Society he talks about how society sees TRANSPARENCY as this UNDENIABLE GOOD. How everyone should have NO SECRETS, if they DO then they must be HIDING something. How access to information should be UBIQUITOUS, and how could anybody really argue otherwise, again… there’s this obvious EXCESS of positivity that he thinks symbolizes this age we’re living in. But to Han he’s ALWAYS trying to ask the question: what is taken AWAY from a human life when we VALUE these positive virtues so much more today? In the case of transparency…how about the very need to TRUST another person? Does THAT become obsolete…in a society of TOTAL transparency?To give an example along the lines of our digital panopticon…let’s say you were going to parent your kids and the way you decided to DO that is just to put a security camera up in their play room and make them know that they’re being WATCHED all the time. Giant POSTER of you on the |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-25|wall as the fuhrer of the house that you got on Etsy. Well that SOLVES the PROBLEM right? They’re BEHAVING now. But DOES it solve the problem? Are you really being a parent there? Or does the security camera DESTROY something that’s more VITAL to the whole process of BECOMING a young adult?This excessively POSITIVE attitude as Han would call it…that EVERYTHING…is supposed to be available to EVERYONE…ALL the TIME…and that is SEEN as an undeniable GOOD that there can BE no DOWNSIDE to. Some of my FAVORITE parts of Han’s work he talks about how there is JUST SOMETHING DEEPER that is going missing when that worldview ACTUALLY becomes a reality. Public SPACES are starting to disappear he says. You know in FORMER societies there were physical places where you HAD to go to if there were PARTICULAR THINGS that you had to get done…for example…if you wanted to get a rare piece of information… you had to go to the library or to the school or to the bookstore. These were PLACES that embodied that learning, spirit. But in a world where every piece of information in the world is available to you all the time on your phone…that’s WONDERFUL and |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-26|all…but there is something DIFFERENT about your experience of the world… when there is some sort of negative FRICTION worked into the equation of GETTING a piece of knowledge…where you’re looking for a book that HAS this piece of information that you want…you go down to the library…but they don’t HAVE the book…oh but a branch twenty miles away has it, so you take three buses to get down there only to find out they just rented out the last copy, and then on your way home you stop at a random bookstore and find the book there. There’s something to the LOSS of that negativity…that loss of FRICTION…and how it CHANGES the subjective experience of being a person in the modern digital world. Anyway…one of my favorite things that Han says about ANY of this stuff is what he thinks YOU should do about it PERSONALLY if you recognize that it’s going on and don’t want to participate in it. Part of his ADVICE to you would be: to be an idiot. Be an IDIOT! Though he doesn’t mean it like you should just be stupid. In fact the pejorative use of the word idiot is actually a fairly new thing |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa-27|in human history. Back in Ancient Greece for example the equivalent of the word we now use as idiot… really just meant someone who was a common person who didn’t really participate in public affairs or aspire to hold public office. It didn’t mean they were STUPID. But nonetheless more recently being called an IDIOT means that you are seen as dumb by the conventional wisdom of the society that you’re living in. But if the WISDOM of the society you’re living in… is one where people are these self-obsessed achievement hunters that get fed an endless stream of surface level information and then instantly swap over to social media to scream their half-baked, narcissistic take on it at other people that are all doing the same thing…if THAT’S the conventional wisdom of the world we’re living in. Be an idiot, in that society. Be the MORON…that is going to slow down, and truly CONTEMPLATE things and how they connect to a larger world picture. Be the idiot who is OKAY with NOT being ENTIRELY SURE about how you FEEL about an issue, EVEN if it’s an issue that’s super IMPORTANT to you. Be the idiot that’s okay with being BORED sometimes |2023-11-28T20:23:30.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-sp7wa|189|Episode #189 - Everything that connects us is slowly disappearing
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-0|  So the last COUPLE episodes… we’ve been talking about the topic of how power operates in the world…SPECIFICALLY, WAYS that people’s behavior is directed where it’s not as obvious or as simple as there being a GUN pointed to your head TELLING you what to do. We’ve talked about a digital panopticon, we’ve talked about big data and surveillance…and I want to start with a quote from the philosopher were gonna be TALKING about today…And for anybody out there who may be newer to philosophy but you’ve listened to the last couple episodes…I love moments like this by the way…where you READ a quote or hear a passage from someone’s work…and you KNOW that a few weeks ago you may not have known WHAT they were talking about…but after having done the work, GOTTEN to another level in your thinking… it FEELS good, seeing the difference KNOWING what the main character of this episode is talking about when he mentions something like a digital panopticon:“Today the entire globe is developing into a panopticon … Google and social networks, which present themselves as spaces of freedom, are assuming panoptic forms. Today surveillance is not occurring as an attack on |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-1|freedom, as is normally assumed. Instead, people are voluntarily surrendering to the panoptic gaze. They deliberately collaborate in the digital panopticon by denuding and exhibiting themselves. The prisoner of the digital panopticon is a perpetrator and a victim at the same time. Herein lies the dialectic of freedom. Freedom turns out to be a form of control."Those were the words of Byung-chul Han, South Korean Born, German philosopher… and just for some time period context here he IS alive today…he’s kinda like zizek in that way…he’s truly somebody where if you wanted to know what it looks like to SEE a great philosopher walking down the street eating a hot dog…you could SEE it. Famous picture of Zizek eating a hotdog. It’s pretty great. And LIKE the last couple episodes Byung-Chul Han is somebody that’s DOING his work IN THE WAKE of Foucault and his analysis of how POWER functions. Like Deleuze from LAST episode…he thinks the ways that people are controlled… have undergone several major developments since the disciplinary model of Foucault… and you can see a GLIMMER of it… in the last line of the QUOTE that we just read where he says that FREEDOM turns out to be |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-2|a form of control.What does Han mean by that? Well Han thinks that in Disciplinary societies like the one that Foucault talked about, and MOST HUMAN SOCIETIES that have EVER EXISTED really…the WAY that people were controlled… is through WHAT he calls NEGATIVE POWER. Think of Negative power as any example of a person’s behavior being controlled by prohibition or limitation. Telling people, “No, you CAN’T do that.” Or “No, you SHOULDN’T do that.” Negative power is the way people are controlled for MOST of human history.But HAN says the WAY people are controlled in TODAY’S modern, western CAPITALIST societies…is through POSITIVE power. POSITIVE power… sounds like this, “You, my friend…you can be WHATEVER IT IS that you WANT to be in this world. In fact if ANYBODY…EVER tells you what kind of person you should be…DON’T LISTEN to them. You’re in charge. You’re in the driver’s seat. You can be ANYTHING.And NOW that we’ve established that you can be ANYTHING…now it’s time for YOU to choose who you want to be. Are you somebody with no goals or dreams that you want to shoot for? Do you want to be somebody that shoots for your dreams, or do you |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-3|wanna sit around your apartment snorting lines of flaming hot cheetos your entire life? What kind of person DO you wanna be? I mean if you can BE ANYTHING wouldn’t you WANT to be one of those people that have a PRESTIGIOUS, POWERFUL, HIGH PAYING position so you don’t have any limitations in your life? That’s how people USED to be enslaved right…limitations from the outside. But YOU don’t have ANY. Think of all your ANCESTORS that USED to be subjugated. Who are YOU to turn this opportunity down. As long as you WORK hard enough. As long as you can put your head down, focus, grind, ACHIEVE your short term goals, set NEW ones, ACHIEVE THOSE ones. The ONLY PERSON…who is IN THE WAY of YOU being a BILLIONAIRE one day…is YOU. And now it’s TIME to get to work on those goals.” This is positive power. Positive power says can. Negative power says should.And as Han says, “Can is much more effective than the negativity of Should. Therefore the social unconscious switches from Should to Can.” This is a new, interesting POSITIVE form of control. We are LIVING in what Han calls an achievement society. Not a disciplinary society. Nobody holds a |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-4|gun to your head and tells you what to do. Again…that’s an OLD FASHIONED TACTIC at this point. ALL you gotta do to CONTROL people is tell them all the stuff they CAN be doing in THEORY… if only they MAKE themselves VALUABLE enough…if only they work hard enough to make their minds as efficient and optimized as they CAN be…what Han calls Psychopolitics. An extension of Foucault’s Biopolitics. You tell people THAT… and you don’t need a gun to people’s heads…in the pursuit of ENDLESSLY MAXIMIZING their abilities…they’ll spend the REST of their lives going CRAZY about NEVER being good enough…never DO ING enough…never being EFFICIENT enough. If there is EVER a moment where they are NOT SPENDING THEIR TIME being as PRODUCTIVE as they COULD be towards MAKING themselves more valuable…they will ACTUALLY feel bad about it. Han says we’re TOLD in these societies to be AUTHENTIC. You know cause AUTHENTICITY…that’s the TRUE MEASURE of someone who’s FREE…someone who’s NOT BEING TOLD by ANYBODY who they should be when you can be ANYTHING you WANT…but AUTHENTICITY he says is an ad campaign of neoliberalism. It’s a self-absorbed nightmare. Because WHEN you TELL somebody that it’s THEIR JOB to DEFINE THEMSELVES…THROUGH THEMSELVES…without |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-5|ANY SORT of outside help…when you MAKE somebody the sole arbiter of CREATING the STANDARDS for themselves and what they’re capable of…and then ALSO the person that checks IN and determines whether they’re DOING the best job they can at MEETING those standards…roles that USED to be filled by OTHER things in societies of the past…there’s only ONE DIRECTION TO GO when you’re CONSTANTLY looking INWARD like that…and to Han that direction is gonna be Narcissism. That’s why wherever you are right now…if you’re inside go outside…go out into the middle of a courtyard, throw a rock in ANY direction and you’ll hit someone who’s a toxic narcissist in today’s world. Practically EVERYBODY is not a PERSON anyone…they’re their own little personal PROJECT. We turn OURSELVES into a commodity with market value. Everything we LEARN, is not just LEARNING…it’s an INVESTMENT… in OURSELVES…Everything is about MENTALLY OPTIMIZING yourself…working, PRODUCING more efficiently with your mind. And it’s a beautiful way to go through life by the way. If somebody calls you OUT for being a narcissist…you can just call them…a LOSER. That’s just somebody who’s LAZY…they’re not GOING for THEIR dreams like I am. They can’t understand the level of WORK that this |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-6|kinda stuff takes. If you’re in a relationship or a friendship and the other person says you focusing on yourself and your own projects so much is causing problems in the relationship…you can just say WHOA. Being in a relationship…TOO MUCH DRAMA for me at THIS point in my life. I don’t have ROOM for all that…I gotta focus on ME and my market VALUE for a while. It REALLY IS a BEAUTIFUL set of excuses to make it seem to you like its a character deficiency in the other person…. rather than you focusing, you know ENTIRELY on yourself. And when your head is SO FAR UP THERE by the way…that you need a miner’s helmet to be able to see…you know you need one of those camping flashlights on your forehead to figure out where you are…when you’re THAT far it really is a special type of narcissistic delusion, it STARTS to even resemble religion. Han says, “The infinite work on the ego resembles self-observation and self- examination in the Protestant religion, and they, in turn, represent a technique of subjectivation and domination. Instead of looking for sins, now negative thoughts are the ones to be sought, the ego struggles |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-7|with itself as against an enemy.” Even something like CREDIT CARD debt becomes something that resembles a religious DEBT to be repaid. You START in debt like with original sin…and then ONLY through your participation in the market driven, achievement narcissism game… do you ever get to REPAY that debt. A narcissist… is the moral exemplar of a neoliberal society.And there’s that word than Han uses a lot neoliberal…and couple important points of context here to understand where he’s COMING from…there have been PLENTY of people out there who have made the claim that the world is full of narcissists, right? And they have all sorts of REASONS they’ll GIVE for making that claim. They’ll say it’s that we’re RAISING more kids to be narcissists with the participation trophy generation…they’ll say that narcissistic PEOPLE RAISE more narcissistic people so now the whole WORLD is more narcissistic.But to Byung Chul Han…that’s almost the OPPOSITE of what’s going on. The narcissistic individual is not the CAUSE of the world being more narcissistic. The ETHOS of the world makes NARCISSISM an EXTREMELY common lane for people to fall into because they HAVE almost no other options. The same way in former societies it was |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-8|very COMMON for people to fall into a lane in life like go to school, graduate go to work, get married, have kids, house, white picket fence…NARCISSISM is a lane we’re funneling people into in neoliberal society. At the risk of sounding boring it needs to be said because we haven’t talked about it on the show for a while…don’t be misguided here…the “liberal” part of neoliberalism has NOTHING to do with what people are talking about when they say liberal or conservative in the modern, american political landscape. Neoliberalism is a strategy that came about in the late 1980’s when western economies were becoming increasingly globalized. Where in an attempt to stay competitive, countries like the United States and the UK thought if we can get out of the WAY of businesses, massively deregulate them, lower their taxes, this will pave the way for them to increase production… which will then create more jobs, those jobs will then go to the middle class who will then SPEND that money back into the economy and this will lead to economic prosperity for everyone. David Harvey calls neoliberalism: "a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well being can be advanced by |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-9|liberating individual, entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade."Now depending on where you sit on the political spectrum in TODAY’S world you could see neoliberalism as being an incredible force for good… or the origin of MANY of the problems that the modern world FACES. As always…it’s not my JOB to be political here…I could do a whole EPISODE on it…the POINT is: THIS is where Han is coming from. When the ETHOS of a neoliberal society is about REDUCING outside regulations on companies to allow for economic growth and innovation…that SAME ETHOS gets applied to the individual person LIVING in one of these societies.Again…it gets APPLIED to them through the maxim…”be whatever you WANT to be!” NOBODY is gonna REGULATE you from the outside anymore! The sky’s the limit. You are a commodity… and your job is to INCREASE your market value by constantly working on YOURSELF. And AGAIN…that self OBSESSION that people gravitate towards is NOT because people are BIRTHING more people with narcissistic brains. They are the EFFECT of how the world is. NOT THE CAUSE to Byung chul han. Narcissism is like water to |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-10|a fish living today.It’s where people sometimes feel like they NEED to live in order to survive. And it just NEEDS to be said: Narcissism carries with it such a negative connotation…I don’t think Han is trying to rub anyone’s nose in it like that I think he’s just saying that these Narcissistic tendencies can get out of HAND if you let them. Or they can just encompass ALL of your personality if you’re not even aware of how society funnels people in this direction. Now what HAPPENS in this WORLD that emerges where SO MANY people are focused on THEMSELVES above everything else…again setting their own STANDARDS, feeling GUILTY about anything they do that isn’t making them more EFFICIENT or OPTIMIZED…what happens to Han…is an INCREASE in levels of Depression and Anxiety. If there’s a LOT of that going ON in the world we’re living in…this self-focused ethos many people fall INTO in life…COULD be part of the reason why. Think of what LIFE is like, I guess a lot of you may be able to RELATE to it: You SET goals for yourself, you have a PICTURE of the PERSON that you want to be IN your MIND. You work |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-11|hard, MAXIMIZING everything about yourself… only to wake up the next day and try to push yourself EVEN MORE…until one day…you break…because NOBODY is supposed to be CONSTANTLY exerting themselves…and then you often have the ADDED bonus of self hatred…because you’re left to deal with the feelings of what SEEMS TO YOU like you lack the motivation… to even BE YOU. I mean that’s a SPECIAL kind of torture.  Remember at other points in human history, say you were born a PEASANT in the middle ages…you were GIVEN a social role to fill…you WORKED really HARD everyday no doubt, but you KNEW exactly who you were…you weren’t trying to till the soil…you know JUST 1% better every day so you could be a senior vice peasant one day…often times in these societies if you were a peasant and you wanted to improve something about yourself maybe you improved things in a spiritual area. And by the way the work you DID do in most of these former societies…was PHYSICAL work…where if you’re exhausted usually you just take a day a week off and your body HEALS itself. But in the world of PSYCHOPOLITICS where you’re constantly MAX IMIZING your MENTAL capabilities…exhaustion in |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-12|THIS area leads to what Byung Chul Han calls BURNOUT. And just… as a PROBLEM…that’s not as SIMPLE as just taking a day off and then everything’s fixed. The depression he talks about people can get stuck in for years. See to Han the plight that people face in THIS society is DEPRESSION…not REPRESSION like in former societies. When it comes to THIS area of your mind nobody is REPRESSING you, holding you down. In MANY ways, he says, we’re encouraged… to AUTO-EXPLOIT ourselves. That’s part of what makes FREEDOM such a diabolical strategy to control. We’re both MASTERS AND SLAVES in our own minds…whipping ourselves to BE BETTER…DO MORE…STOP COMPLAINING. We either DON’T live up to our own standards, burnout and feel horrible. OR we find a way to accomplish the goals…and then with the nature of the human mind to restlessly strive for goals, get them for a day and then have some OTHER goal to shoot for…EVEN WHEN WE ACCOMPLISH the stuff we set out to DO…we just remain anxious, exhausted and perpetually dissatisfied. But nobodies coming to SAVE you…because anxiety as he says…leads to PRODUCTION. It is ultimately a GOOD THING for the economic ORDER of things for you to be |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-13|constantly ANXIOUS and producing. Again NEITHER of these… depression OR anxiety… are areas you necessarily HAVE… to find yourself in. But these are COMMON LANES that people fall into the same way that in OTHER worlds it was common for people to sign up for the draft after they graduate school.And the TECHNOLOGY that we have AROUND us today…makes it EVEN EASIER to end up in this depression or anxiety. What he’s going to eventually SAY that we’ll talk about in detail is that what has been REMOVED from modern life that makes these outcomes so much more common for people…is the PRESENCE of the OTHER. And it makes sense: if what this world makes people do is focus WAY too much on themselves…then if you’re a BETTIN’ person…what’s MISSING from their life is PROBABLY gonna be EVERYTHING ELSE OUTSIDE of them that has historically brought VALUE to people’s lives. He calls this the OTHER, difference, negativity, the hidden, the imperfect, these words will become practically interchangeable when discussing all the things that are MISSING from a solely narcissistic worldview.And when you PAY ATTENTION he says… EVERYTHING in this world… is being SLOWLY turned into the SAME. He says, "the terror of the same |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-14|affects all areas of life today. one travels everywhere, yet does not experience anything. one catches sight of everything yet reaches no insight. one accumulates information and data, yet does not attain knowledge. one lusts after adventures and stimulation, but always remains the same. One accumulates online friends and followers, yet never encounters another person.”Now let’s break down what he means by ALL of those and how technology makes these easier… but maybe the FIRST thing that needs to be addressed is I’m sure there are some people out there who HEAR Han say that everybody in this world is turning into the SAME THING. And thinking: what world is THIS guy living in? People don’t have enough of the OTHER in their life? That’s literally THE problem with society… is that people are TURNING people INTO the other when it’s not appropriate to. This TRIBALISM that people cling to. They see someone who politically disagrees with them… and they DON’T see another person who all things considered we agree on MORE things than we DISAGREE ON…no they TURN this person into the ENEMY. Then those people talk PAST each other and they can never really have a conversation. The PROBLEM with this |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-15|world someone could say… is that we EMBRACE the concept of the other TOO much…But what Byung Chul Han would no doubt say is: would you call that…a genuine interaction with the OTHER? Would you call that the person REALLY encountering ideas that they disagree with, truly considering those ideas, and then sitting with them? Or is that WHOLE process just a poorly hidden attempt to confirm their own BIAS…so they don’t have to really GET to know the person and how they feel? In other words is this in REALITY… just another version of narcissistic self-affirmation? Tell me, if you’ve ever found yourself on one side or another of a political issue... and you write a comment and someone from the other side claps backs at you…do you ever feel like that person TRULY understands where you’re coming from? Does it even feel like they CARE…about KNOWING where you’re coming from? No, there’s nothing ABOUT them… that TRULY wants to encounter DIFFERENCE or the OTHER…what they WANT is for everybody to have pretty much the SAME thoughts that THEY do. EVERYTHING needs to be the same.Because TRULY listening to another person, setting your ego aside, FEELING another person’s perspective…that can be |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-16|INCREDIBLY uncomfortable…it FORCES you think hard about the limitations of your own perspective…it FORCES you to think of THEM…AS THEY ARE…SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT than you…NOT just how they BENEFIT you in some transactional way. These achievement society people will have ZERO deep, close relationships in their life…and the people they DO have as friends are just transactional, they INCREASE their market value in some way, they support the image they have of themselves, their friends are good CONTACTS to have in a networking sense…the narcissist LOVES to have FRIENDS that are the all the SAME as them and AGREE with them on everything. Tell them EVERYTHING they’re doing is JUST fine. I mean, heaven forbid there’s ANOTHER perspective out there that’s totally valid. And this EXTENDS to the way they act when they come across NEW, perspective shifting IDEAS…YES in the political sphere but also…documentaries, videos, podcasts, anything…they’re never looking to entertain anything that’s TOO far outside their field of view. They just want to see new ideas that are MOSTLY, KIND OF already corresponding with what they think they know. This is ANOTHER way a narcissist denies the other in their life, ISOLATING themselves just a little bit MORE. NONE of this…is |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-17|actually trying to engage with TRUE difference. Just an ILLUSION of it. In reality as Han says the OTHER… is incomparable. Meaning EVEN looking at the OTHER and trying to understand that person or those ideas by COMPARING them to pre-defined categories…EVEN THAT, OBSCURES the true difference of the other because it’s just viewing them through your own individual set of terms that are important to you…it reduces the true BEAUTY of the OTHER he says…into mere diversity. What this LEADS to is a crisis of CONNECTION and a crisis of LOVE for people in the modern world. People want everything and everyONE to be the same another example is when someone takes a selfie and then puts a filter on it to SMOOTH out all the edges and the imperfections. This turns them into some STANDARD of beauty that isn’t them. And Han says when you REMOVE the otherness from somebody…you CAN’T ever really LOVE that person…all you can do is consume them. When you remove the otherness from an idea it CAN’T ever really AFFECT you…all you can do is consume it. And think of all the ways PEOPLE are turned into things to CONSUME when it comes to ROMANCE |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-18|on the INTERNET. Sorry I THINK you get what I’m saying trying to keep this all PG, very muppet treasure island of me. Always want people to be able to listen to this when their kids are within earshot. Anyway, True INTERACTION with and true CONSIDERATION of the OTHER…THIS IS WHAT IS MISSING… for a lot of people in today’s world. And it makes it even EASIER to fall into this place Han says because the technology that PRETTY MUCH EVERYBODY USES…enables FURTHER ISOLATION almost like it’s an addiction.When you’re on the internet…if you ever ENCOUNTER anything that makes you feel uncomfortable like you have to truly put your ego aside for a second and try to understand it from the eyes of someone else…you can just click OFF of the page…you can just swipe to the next video…and the ALGORITHM will HAPPILY go along with it…because it’s job is just to keep you ON the app…it doesn’t really care what kind of narcissistic game you’re playing…in a sense Han says we propagandize OURSELVES. We are in a world where people can get a constant STREAM on their phones of SURFACE LEVEL information. No doubt…we got access to information more than ANY |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-19|people who have ever LIVED. But as Han says the world is more than just information…and the SCREEN is a bad representation of the world. So in reality we don’t HAVE a true connection to the world he says…and what happens is we sink into a scattered ego. What is he TALKING about there? Well MOST EXAMPLES of people being DOMINATED throughout history have had some sort of symbol that people carry around with them that represents their domination. Think of slaves being branded, think of a scarlet letter. Well to Han, the SMARTPHONE is that to us… and MORE because it actually STRENGTHENS our form of domination. He compares a smartphone to a rosary and beads…something that people who are under the control of a religion carry around with them and hold UP at the right times. It’s NOT ONLY a surveillance device…and ALSO a digital confessional. And Facebook is the church he says…a like is a digital amen…and instead of asking for forgiveness…we call out for attention. In fact almost EVERYTHING about the smartphone he says…is utterly incompatible with true THINKING and freedom. To understand where he’s COMING from with this point…we have to make a distinction between what he thinks |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-20|is TRUE thinking… and what often PASSES as thinking for people…consider what it’s like to be on tiktok… or MOST of the internet for that matter…tiktok’s just a very obvious VERSION of it. You’re scrolling from video to video…you’re getting TONS of information. But there’s no…contemplation…that’s going on about it. In fact that’s the APPEAL of watching any of these channels that HACK your attention span. You don’t HAVE to put in any thought…nothing you’re watching has to CONNECT to some deeper picture of the world you have…it’s all self-referential…when you watch one of these videos…it REALLY IS just some narcissist dancing to a song they didn’t write in the mirror making cute little faces cause that’s what people DO when they dance…you switch to another video “I’m gonna bake the world’s LARGEST coconut cream pie…and then LIVE in it for 40 days!” And thats…it. That’s truly ALL the video is. And there’s something BEAUTIFUL about that that’s part of the appeal. But there’s no DEPTH to that experience. There’s nothing MEANINGFUL about reality that those things are connecting to with people. You’re having a SURFACE level interaction with reality…and then some people WONDER why it seems like MOST of the stuff they |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-21|consume is MEANINGLESS.THIS IS WHAT HE MEANT by that quote from earlier where he talked about the terror of the same affecting ALL AREAS of life. You travel everywhere, yet don’t experience anything. You SEE everything but have ZERO insight. You consume information, but gain ZERO knowledge. Lust after adventures and stimulation, but stay the same. Get online friends and followers, but never encounter another person.He says BECAUSE the pace of the world is SPEEDING UP in modern times… because you CAN just pull up a screen and float from video to video that gives you a shallow experience of the world…you can BRING that shallow level of understanding to every experience that you HAVE in the world if you let it. Bu to Byung Chul Han…Meaning, knowledge, truth…these things ONLY COME… when you contemplate how the PRESENT MOMENT CONNECTS to the past and the future. But there’s no time to contemplate when you’re just SCROLLING from one distraction in life to the next. It takes takes someone ACTIVELY, MAKING THE CHOICE to SLOW DOWN… and take an inventory of HOW this stuff actually impacts you. Think of the person that speed reads through a book… you know just CONSUMING all the information…but |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-22|then never remembers any of it after they’re done READING.If you don’t TAKE THE TIME to CONTEMPLATE HOW that information connects to the existing order of things…ALL THAT will just stay raw information…nothing more. And again to the person TRAPPED in that shallow narcissism NEVER really considering the other…that SHALLOWNESS becomes the depth you’re capable of HAVING in EVERY experience that you encounter. See that’s one of the COSTS of BLINDLY LIVING in this achievement society…And I guess ALSO the first EXAMPLE in this episode of something we can DO to not be at the mercy of it. One thing I personally love about Han’s work is that it feels EMPOWERING in comparison to some other people’s work talking about this stuff. Cause man do I hate at this point in my philosophical journey to come across thinkers who say something like is it FREEDOM…or SECURITY? I dont know! Maybe somewhere in the middle I guess! What are we gonna do?  Or even worse someone that PRESCRIBES some DOOMSDAY scenario about the world we’re living in…then offers NOTHING that can be DONE about it. Byung Chul Han is different…BECAUSE he’s less ambitious than other philosophers that try to write these SWEEPING encapsulations of how |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-23|all aspects of society work together…because he’s MOSTLY interested in people’s individual experiences…this gives him the ability to comment on how someone might IMPROVE their situation if they FIND themselves in one of these lanes in life. And the GENERAL strategy…that’s going to apply to MANY different areas of life, just putting it up as a BILLBOARD here in the beginning: is that we need to find a way to REINTRODUCE…that negativity…or that OTHERNESS into our lives.Look, if we are living in a society where people often get funneled into lanes in life where they have surface level, thoughtless anniversaries of burnout, anxiety and depression…that in PART are because they’re OVERLY focused on THEMSELVES as personal PROJECTS…well then to put it in as PRACTICAL a way as I can…if you NOTICE that people IN these societies AS THEY MATURE…often times learn to DO things like put their ego aside, listen more, truly entertain outside ideas, they slow down, they move towards a more DEEP understanding of the world they’re in…if these are things that OFTEN come with AGE…then to Byung Chul Han…that is NOT a coincidence…because each and every ONE of those things shows a person that is AWARE of how |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-24|important the OTHER is… for living a good life. And it goes BEYOND just these things. That’s what’s so empowering about HIS view of society in particular. You may be trapped inside a digital panopticon…but if you’re AWARE of that fact…you CAN make SPACE for the OTHER in your life. Or as HE says… develop a SENSE for the other. And if this SOUNDS familiar…MANY of these ideas are going to be in reference to eastern concepts that we touched on in the series we just did on Simone Weil. You’ll see a lot of parallels as we go THROUGH this. Han talks about finding moments where you can TRULY listen…to someone else…as THEY are. This is an IMPORTANT thing to integrate into your life if you’re not already. You LISTEN to someone else…NOT JUST in terms of how they benefit you. NOT JUST COMPARING them to yourself. But slowing down and truly listening, emptying the self, getting your own ego out of the way… and as he says: becoming a RESONANCE chamber for the other person to “speak themselves free”. I mean that sounds like Simone Weil was reanimated from the grave, broke into his house and WROTE that in his |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-25|journal. But we gotta do MORE than just listen. ANOTHER thing you gotta do to FIGHT this narcissistic urge TO ALWAYS need to be EFFICIENT and PRODUCTIVE…you know you’re out with people you should be hanging out with and you CAN’T stop feeling bad that you’re not being more EFFICIENT with this time…Han says you GOTTA try to make space in your life for things…where you’re DOING them and it’s NOT because they’re IMPROVING you in some way, it’s NOT because it’s making you money…find space to DO things that are PURELY for the sake of joy. That BALANCE…establishing CLEAR boundaries between work and leisure and leaving room for both…valuing things like REST as well…these are things that are easy to forget with as fast paced as things can be…but just like with the person who ONLY watches tiktok videos…if you don’t BALANCE productivity and this OTHER dimension of life of moral reflection…you’ll just never reach deeper levels of understanding about life, and again you’ll BRING that shallowness to potentially EVERY experience that you have. When it comes to the SPECIFIC ways that Byung Chul Han lives his life…he’s famously known for Gardening, for finding ways to do work with his hands, sitting |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-26|in silence. These are just a few ideas but obviously you can do whatever works for you. And by the way he says for ANYONE out there who may want to use their brain to CHALLENGE the existing order of things and try to make the world a better place…whether you’re a musician coming up with a new song, or a dancer coming up with a new dance move, or a philosopher coming up with a new way of thinking…ALL of those, require people to do ACTUAL contemplative thinking. He says THINKING, ACTUALLY contemplating things at a deeper level…THAT’S something that differentiates us from other animals. The surface level, rapid fire, multitasking of attention that TYPICALLY goes on in an achievement society…THAT’S something you can see in ANIMAL behavior. What WE can do is we can CHALLENGE the way we are CURRENTLY thinking about things, and really SIT with something truly different than what we currently believe. And THAT is what the world needs if you REALLY want to be somebody that’s moving it forward. Now as you can imagine there’s some RESPONSES to what Han has been saying in this episode. You know you can imagine someone who’s young, they’re AMBITIOUS, they’re |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-27|LIVING in one of these achievement societies… and they HEAR what Byung Chul Han is speaking on and they say wow…I have never heard ANYONE…give such a great HANDBOOK… for justifying TOXIC levels of MEDIOCRITY in their life. This person might say look, you can CALL what I’m doing narcissistic if you WANT. Because I’m working on myself. Because I want to be the best person I CAN be to provide for my family. But look…I call what YOU’RE doing… GARDENING and sitting in silence…I call that just a waste of time. Every second that you spend taking a REST day doing things SIMPLY for the sake of joy…for every one of THOSE seconds there is SOMEBODY ELSE out there grinding, working to take everything that you have. I’m trying to get a bugatti this person might say. I’ll be sure to WAVE at you from it when you’re on the side of the ROAD with all your leisure time. And I get leaving time for moral reflection about my PLACE in the world and all…but look you don’t gotta be Socrates to understand the BASICS of how to TREAT people in the world, don’t be a jerk. Take care of your |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-28|responsibilities. These are not MYSTERIES of the universe, there’s a BASELINE of moral understanding that you need and once you HIT it the BIGGEST obstacles you have are solved by IMPROVING your market value. That’s how society works and THAT’S what I’m gonna do. Coming from the perspective of Byung Chul Han though…somebody may say back to this person okay. I get it. You APPLY yourself at the highest level you can. Nobody is saying ANYTHING about not APPLYING yourself or being lazy. They’re simply saying that there is MORE TO LIFE than productivity and efficiency. And that it is VERY POSSIBLE to LIVE life where MOST of your field of view is this narcissistic self-optimization, to FEEL the negative IMPACTS of IGNORING OTHER parts of life, and then to blame the way you FEEL on things that are just unavoidable about the modern world. Oh, I don’t have any friends because it’s hard to make FRIENDS in today’s world. I don’t have a partner because I just have to focus on my career. I crash and burn and argue with people on the internet because there’s just a lot of stupid people in the world today. It’s not a coincidence that |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b-29|that person in the bugatti may have a lot of SURFACE level relationships in their life. It’s not a coincidence they may have a lot of shallow ways that they think about treating other people. It’s not a coincidence if they don't have a very DEEP understanding of ANYTHING about how the world works. Somebody might say back look you can wave to me in your Bugatti when I’m out there in my garden…but I’ll be sure to wave back at you as you’re alone in your Bugatti, spouting some conspiratorial nonsense that in YOUR eyes actually passes as a worldview…as you talk about treating people in ways that sound like you’re a junior in high school. You’re right…you don’t need to be Socrates and reflect on morality all day to be able to live a good life…but the fact is… that person… DOESN’T EVEN MISS…the levels of depth to EVERYTHING that’s available to someone if they just spent a LITTLE less time talking and a little more time actually thinking. Anyway Byung Chul HAn can be seen as the FIRST MEMBER of this philosophical ROUNDTABLE for how to navigate the panopticon. The more I tried to fit everything in that episode |2023-11-28T20:22:02.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-pdh4b|188|Episode #188 - Achievement Society and the rise of narcissism, depression and anxiety
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-0|  So LAST episode we talked about the possibility of a digital panopticon emerging. We talked about Foucault, the relationship between knowledge and power…and an important FOLLOW up on all that for the beginning of THIS episode today…is that ONE of the things Foucault’s MOST interested in when he’s DOING his work…is that he wants to figure out, HOW EXACTLY…people’s behavior is being CONTROLLED within a society. What are ALL of the ways… that people are COMPELLED to behave in a particular way…and NOT JUST when it comes to all the OBVIOUS ones that people typically think about!See because throughout the history of western philosophy…LOT of thinkers have looked at POWER and tried to understand how it FUNCTIONS. And MOST of them look to something like the GOVERNMENT… as THE thing that’s IN POWER that’s PASSING the laws and controlling people’s behavior. It ALL SEEMS very OBVIOUS. You GOTTA follow the laws…you don’t follow the laws…ultimately there’s a GUN to your head forcing you to DO it. In philosophical terms you could call that the SOVEREIGN POWER COMPELLING people to DO things under threat of violence, they control the military.  And Foucault DEFINITELY ACKNOWLEDGES that that’s A form of power in society. |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-1|HE’S just saying that if you ONLY looked at the GOVERNMENT… as the thing that has POWER over people…then you’re gonna be missing out on a LOT of important ways that your behavior is disciplined, controlled, drilled and normalized into a particular LANE…by INSTITUTIONS in society.The examples from last time… schools, factories, hospitals, barracks…these are ALL EXAMPLES to Foucault of institutions where there’s not a GUN to anybody’s head…but nonetheless HOW these environments are structured… ENCOURAGES a system of conformity. Back in 1975… this is ANOTHER UNDENIABLE WAY that people’s behavior is directed in the world. This is a kind of POWER. And to Foucault by the way…he KNOWS this is a HALLMARK of 1975. He understands that the specific TACTICS of power SHIFT from generation to generation. Which RAISES the NEXT question… that if he were alive today he’d NO DOUBT still be ASKING: What is the architecture of how power operates TODAY…in THIS society that we’re LIVING in?What are the ways that your freedom is being limited right now…that are NOT AS OBVIOUS as there just being a GUN to your head?At the end of the episode we’ll talk about the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and how he takes up the |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-2|WORK of Foucault in this area and speculates about what HE thinks…is a NEW type… of controlling society that’s emerging in the beginning of the 21st century. A NEW structure of how power works. But…just to COMPLETELY switch gears here…don’t read too much INTO this…it’s not related at all.Did you guys know that George Orwell’s 1984… is one of the most banned books in the history of the world? Yeah, I don’t know why…it’s like governments don’t want people hearing about the gradual erosion of people’s rights through surveillance…all the different FORMS that surveillance can take. Could be that. OR it could just be that the people banning the books…didn’t really like the way George Orwell SOLD the whole idea of a surveillance state. In hindsight…he REALLY did focus a bit too much on the negative, didn’t he? I mean yeah, dystopian FUTURE and all…but HAVE you ever thought about the UPSIDE of an all encompassing surveillance state? You’re so NEGATIVE all the time you ever thought about the POSITIVES?Stuart Armstrong wrote an article EXPLORING that very possibility. And he STARTS by saying that IF that kind of world ever becomes a reality…it may be surprising…but SOME of you out there… are |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-3|gonna like it. There are a LOT of things about the way the world is RIGHT NOW that are pretty annoying…that would INSTANTLY be gone if we had a total surveillance state starting tomorrow. I figure since George Orwell didn’t do a very good job of selling it WHY NOT start here? And how bout this RIGHT OFF THE TOP, LOW HANGING FRUIT…Stuart Armstrong says to picture a level of CRIME REDUCTION…that is actually DIFFICULT for people to fully imagine, picture a world…. where EVERYTHING is being recorded…down to EVERYTHING…and I mean EVERYTHING…and that THAT information is being recorded, analyzed and filtered in a way where if you EVER committed ANY sort of a crime…that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that you would EVER get away with it. So ANY crime outside of crimes of passion…all of that now become practically unthinkable in this society. And not just PETTY crimes…that extends to bribery. That extends to corruption. ALL of those would be recorded now. Police brutality, gone. Abused children, spouses, employees being treated horribly…ANYTHING that is CURRENTLY…a my word against their word sort of situation…frustrating in THIS world to know who’s telling the truth...in THIS world there would be a recording of that |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-4|event that exists FOREVER. Meaning if you’re someone that decides to HURT someone else…EVEN if you can intimidate someone into not talking right now…you will be sitting there for the rest of your life KNOWING that a recording of it thing exists somewhere, just waiting. Good luck with your blood pressure medication, by the way. And if THAT’S the kind of world we’re LIVING in Stuart Armstrong says…it just FOLLOWS that we ALSO probably wouldn’t really need as giant of a standing POLICE force patrolling the streets from day to day. More than that we probably wouldn’t need them armed with assault weapons and armored vehicles either. I mean all that stuff we’re told is NECESSARY in the US just in case someone plans a secret attack. But not in THIS world…there ARE no secret attacks.  And in a world with no secret attacks…he says the nature and scope of the MILITARY would have to change too. A big reason why militaries have to have as many weapons and troops as they do is out of consideration of how many weapons and troops OTHER countries have that may be dangerous to us. But if everyone knew everything that everyone had… maybe that |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-5|could change as well. Even if you don’t believe in the Disney/Pixar grand vision of the whole MILITARY side of things being better…there’s OTHER things that would DEFINITELY be easier. Pandemics he says could be traced and quarantined really quickly…no need to shut down the entire globe for over a year. More than that, whenever there’s a dangerous technology instead of issuing a blanket BAN on research…he says maybe you could allow research to continue and use the surveillance data to sift out the bad actors that we’re ACTUALLY scared of…think of how much progress is NOT CURRENTLY being made because of oversight…that COULD be made if we didn’t have to FEAR people like that. On a similar note…think of any study that involves human testing… where currently… you need funding, you need everyone in the study to be a volunteer, they have to go through a long process, it can be tough to find real people that actually want to PARTICIPATE in these things…I mean honestly…who really goes down to a building on their day off and does a STUDY in their spare time, only reason I did it one back in the day is because I was desperate to pay |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-6|bills. Well as Stuart Armstrong says imagine the possibility of scientists using surveillance data… and INSTANTLY being able to test any NUMBER of theories, from ALL different ages, cultures, lifestyles…as he says the panopticon…could be a research Nirvana. PASSWORDS in this world would become POINTLESS. Because why do I REALLY gotta come up with some SECRET CODE of letters and numbers so that the server knows that it’s really me? People would just be tracked in this world. If you need to buy food…they’d just be able to charge your account when they know that you’re actually at the grocery store. More than that…what is the purpose of waiting in LINE ANYWHERE in a world like this? Just grab what you need and walk out. At a music festival he says, just charge the people that go within a particular boundary. Security lines at the airport would be gone as well. But maybe one of the BIGGEST changes he says…is that in a world of an ALL encompassing surveillance state…lies and hypocrisy… would become practically IMPOSSIBLE for someone to pull off as well. At least when it comes to lies about stuff that people saw or did in their life. Just imagine |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-7|how much something like THAT… changes the world. See as it TURNS OUT…there’s plenty of UPSIDES to a surveillance state…IF you’re willing to look at it from a particular perspective. The REAL question is of course…what is the COST to you, personally…for GETTING those benefits? And I’m not talking about a financial cost. I saw an example one time of a philosopher talking about the cost of a surveillance state…and he made a point by asking the reader to imagine that you’re THINKING of attending a school in the future…and that there’s two different hypothetical SCHOOLS that you’re TRYING to choose between. And I’m paraphrasing here cause it was a long time ago: but he says imagine one of these schools… where it’s a surveillance culture…cameras on every desk, microphones everywhere picking up everything that’s being said…where IF you are a student there…EVERY day of your life you are recorded, checked and scrutinized DOWN to the finest detail of your behavior.Now what this school can brag about in it’s pamphlets when its trying to RECRUIT people… is that they have the LOWEST incidence rate of CHEATING… of ANY school in the world. There’s no cheating, and for that matter there’s no bullying, |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-8|there’s no littering…there’s nothing out of line going on in this school at all. But then imagine there’s ANOTHER school that you’re comparing it to… that, DOESN’T scrutinize everyone’s life that goes there. They have more of an honor system approach where yes some people are going to cheat…but they ask that you don’t, there’s consequences if we find out that you DO cheat…and the question this philosopher suggests the reader asks THEMSELVES after CONSIDERING these two schools… is NOT JUST which school has better STATISTICS of crime and efficiency…but which one of these schools… would you actually rather GO TO? And WHY? At the heart of these questions is an ongoing social dilemma that our modern societies are CONSTANTLY engaging in…it’s one of the most important conversations in the HISTORY of philosophy…and it’s one where there’s a surprising amount that the average person actually can DO about it in comparison to OTHER issues. I’m talking about the age old philosophical dilemma of freedom vs security.If you’re unaware of just how EMBEDDED this freedom/security debate is into MANY of the arguments people are having today, well then this episode will hopefully be a nice one for you. This polarity exists pretty much |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-9|underneath everything. Look AROUND you. I’m gonna leave YOU to determine the SPECIFICS of how it lines up with the exact issues in your world…it’s not my JOB to be political…MY job here…as the resident fan of PHILOSOPHY is just to say…that this is a MASSIVELY important issue to understand if you want to know what’s going ON.And it SHOULD be said… it’s an issue that’s been going on… for as LONG as there’s been people working together with other PEOPLE to try to make life a little easier. The first time ANYBODY was walking through the woods and comes across a group of people and wants to be a part of them…THAT person had to sacrifice SOME LEVEL of individual FREEDOM…in consideration of the COMMUNITY that they want to receive a benefit from. There is ALWAYS SOME LEVEL of a trade off. You scale this UP to us being CITIZENS of a modern society and the question becomes: HOW MUCH individual FREEDOM are you willing to sacrifice to be SAFE from outside threats? And how that usually manifests in the world WE’RE living in where fear and technology are such a thing…is how much PRIVACY are you willing to give |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-10|up… in the name of security?One side of the argument…the more SECURITY minded people…don’t MIND sacrificing quite a BIT of freedom and privacy… IF it MEANS that everybody is gonna be more safe if we DO that. THIS side of the argument might talk about the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes…where that sacrifice IS what’s going ON whenever you CREATE a society at all. We START in the state of nature where there IS no society. Nobody LIKES it in the state of nature you could starve…you could get eaten by an alligator, you could have hail coming down on your head, that kinda hurts sometimes especially when they get a little bigger…these are ALL horrible possibilities…And what we DO to AVOID them is we form a society, we sacrifice certain freedoms and HAND them over to a government… so they maintain order and can keep everybody safe. Ah but here’s the thing…state of nature was BAD ENOUGH in the 1600’s when Thomas Hobbes was doing his work…but in 2023 this person could say…what we have now…are a HOST of NEW possibilities that have NEVER EXISTED… that have CHANGED what the state of nature IS. Bioweapons, nuclear weapons, deployable AI, automatic weapons…we WANTED better |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-11|and better technology…and we GOT it. But this person would say these things have put us in an age… where if we want the government to keep us SAFE from these things…we just HAVE to sacrifice MORE of our freedom and privacy. Look we may have agreed a long time ago to sacrifice a CERTAIN amount of privacy… for a CERTAIN amount of SECURITY. But NOTHING ABOUT THAT AGREEMENT meant that it should be CHISELED into stone and can never change. This is ONE SIDE of the argument. But the OTHER side of the argument, the people more on the FREEDOM side of this may say BACK…okay, you’re right we sacrifice freedom for security. But the REAL question is: how much FREEDOM…for how much security? Is this me sacrificing my freedom to build a nuclear weapon in my garage so that I don’t have to worry about one going off in the middle of a city? That seems like a fair trade. OR is this more like a digital panopticon situation where I’m sacrificing ALL of my personal information so that I can get a roast beef SANDWICH delivered five minutes faster. It’s ALL in the details of the trade off of freedom |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-12|and security. What am I sacrificing and what am I getting? They might talk about the work of someone like John Stuart Mill or John Locke…BOTH of which argue strongly for how individual autonomy… is CENTRAL to human dignity. They may say look what good is all the security in the WORLD if you’re not free to be your own PERSON on the other side of it? And YES…the LEVEL of PRIVACY we give up HAS to change based on the time period…but it ALSO has to be said that you gotta be SO CAREFUL… about each little BIT of that privacy that you give up. Because historically…whenever people have given up rights and handed them over to the government…there are almost ZERO examples of people GETTING those rights BACK, WITHOUT some sort of violent, bloody revolution taking place. And THAT’S the WAY that this stuff typically happens is slowly…SMALL little invasions of privacy…bit by bit, you ALMOST don’t even notice it…and then all of a sudden, poof it’s gone…this is why we have to always remain VIGILANT on the privacy side of things as well.  These two perspectives on freedom and security…it’s a classic disagreement. And you might think that the MAJORITY |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-13|of this argument was figured out hundreds of years ago…Ben Franklin figured this stuff out when he was whittling a little wooden goose. But in reality…this is actually a discussion where there’s been some key moments of progress that have JUST happened fairly RECENTLY in the latter half of the 20th century. And while the upsides of the surveillance state really do speak for themselves as to why someone would WANT them…I think it’s important to take some TIME here and give a more DETAILED account for why some people think PRIVACY…is one of the most important things protect in the world. Seems like a good way to get to know the TRUE COST of the surveillance state. See because… it’s not just BIG GOVERNMENT people or weirdos that want to look in your windows that would say that maybe PRIVACY isn’t the thing that we should be focused on protecting. There’s actually quite a few arguments that say privacy…may just be the wrong WORD. Maybe privacy is too BROAD of a term to even be USEFUL in these discussions about protecting people’s rights…or even that it’s a false category altogether. For example: the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson famously argued back in the |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-14|1970s…that when you examine cases where people talk about their PRIVACY being violated…violations of privacy… are always reducible to other things. There is always SOME OTHER violation that is going on that’s ALREADY protected by the law in a more CLEAR way. So say that somebody reads your diary…you didn’t WANT them to read your diary…Judith Thomson would ask is that a violation of your PRIVACY? Or is that actually a violation of your property rights? When someone’s eavesdropping on your conversation…is that a violation of privacy? Or is that more… trespassing, or interfering with your bodily autonomy? See that’s the thing in these conversations: one of the big questions that people started analyzing MORE in the 20th century is what is the correct way to be THINKING about privacy?Ask YOURSELF this question: do you think that privacy…is a human right? That should be guaranteed to everyone regardless of the circumstance? Or as it’s said, do you think privacy is better defined… as an interest. An interest…that is absolutely IMPORTANT to us, but that it should ALWAYS be weighed in consideration of OTHER interests like the interest of national security. The interest of public health. Even the interest of people’s personal well |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-15|being sometimes. Because there’s been OTHER arguments over the years against privacy…some feminist thinkers have really tried to examine the ROLE of privacy… as something that certain people ONLY value… because it allows them to keep skeletons hidden inside of their closet. We talked about how a total surveillance state would make it so that abusive and toxic people COULDN’T HIDE the fact that they were abusing people. Well this is the reverse of that. They say some people claim to be ALL ABOUT privacy and individual freedom…when really those things are just TOOLS they want to protect…so that they can be able to keep treating people, often times women, horribly. Some people have tried to say that privacy…is really just a vague CLUSTER of rights that all fall under the broader category of LIBERTY…they’d say we ALREADY protect people’s right to liberty, how is that any different than privacy?Naturally people argued against it. Clearly we have things that are protected in the name of people’s liberty, free speech, freedom of religion…and clearly these things have NOTHING to do with protecting someone’s PRIVACY. Anyway ALL THIS DISAGREEMENT between people has actually been a GREAT thing for our understanding of privacy. TONS of smart people |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-16|to READ in this back and forth by the way if you’re looking for something in this area, Ruth Gavison, Anita Allen, Adam Moore, Edward Bloustein, Judith DeCew. For the sake of your convenience I won't go through each thinker one by one…I just wanna give you some of the watershed moments from this discussion…synthesize it for ya. Because I THINK the ideas that they arrived at… really emphasize what would be LOST for an individual person if we found ourselves LIVING in the type of surveillance society we talked about at the top of the episode. See it may be tempting to think that privacy… is really just ensuring people’s ability to keep things SECRET about themselves. But what they FOUND in these discussions is that it’s actually much MORE than that. ANOTHER REALLY important thing that privacy DOES is that it really is the THING…that gives people SPACE to be who they truly are. We talked about this a little last time when we asked do you ever have PRIVATE conversations about things that you would NEVER say in a public setting because it’s irresponsible to. But nonetheless those conversations are CRUCIAL when it comes to your own education and development. Privacy |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-17|is the ONLY thing that makes those kinds of conversations possible. In a surveillance state…there is no SPACE for people to read what they want to read… watch what they want to watch… without having to worry about it being publicly visible. NOT giving people that FREEDOM will CHANGE the ideas they are able to get exposed to. Another important aspect of privacy they found is that privacy is ALSO the ONLY THING it turns out…that allows people to decide WHO they want in their life… and to what extent they actually WANT that person in their life. Like if you’re an abused child, and you grow up, you work through all your demons, you have a family, you’re living a happy, satisfied life…what if you DON’T want the people that abused you  to have ACCESS to the details of your life? Shouldn’t that be something you have at least a VOICE in? Or say there’s a creepy guy down the street… that develops some kind of weird fixation on you. Where they watch you. You don’t WANT them to be watching you…you don’t want them to know anything about you. But in a surveillance state all of a sudden… they have access |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-18|to ALL SORTS of intimate details about where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re talking to…you go by their house on your morning jog they ask you how was that bowl of cornflakes you had this morning? Noticed you used TWO spoons of sugar today…SOMEONE’S treating themselves. WHY SHOULD ANYONE…NOT have a say in WHO we want to give ACCESS to the intimate details of our lives? Simply from a supply and demand perspective…the freedom to have privacy MAY ACTUALLY BE what makes it VALUABLE when we CHOOSE to allow CERTAIN people into our lives and not others…and in a total surveillance state…you no longer HAVE that kind of CONTROL over your life. Oh but don’t worry. You’re really safe, right?It was SAID earlier in the episode that IN the surveillance state… it would be next to IMPOSSIBLE to LIE or to be a hypocrite. And this was the CASE…because in a surveillance state you wouldn’t be the only one with ACCESS to what’s going on in your life…you tell a lie and people could just SEARCH your DAY and see if you’re telling the truth. But the FLIP side of not being able to LIE…is that you’re ALSO not able to |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-19|have discretion. You’re not able to decide what things you feel are important for people to know and what things you want to keep to yourself. And NOT just when it comes to secrets…but how bout just when it comes to your PERSONALITY. What I mean is: think about the level of scrutiny that the surveillance state invites on people simply, by DESIGN. AS OF RIGHT NOW…you can HAVE strong thoughts on things about the world around you…and if you don’t want to TELL people about them…if you don’t want to DEAL with the scrutiny and drama of the entire internet coming after you for saying the wrong thing…right now you have the freedom to KEEP your opinions about things private. But in a world where anyone interested can sift through the inventory of the events of your day and comment to you on it… how you drive… or how you talked to the cashier a little too snippy…or that maybe you didn’t wash your HANDS long enough after relieving yourself…should people be FORCED to endure public scrutiny on this level? Or should privacy protect it?MORE than that it was argued back in the 1990’s…doesn’t privacy ALSO allow for a wide range |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-20|of voices to be able to be developed…in the FIRST place? And isn’t that what we want? Think of something like ART. To HAVE artists that are PUSHING the boundaries of what’s normally acceptable…that’s an INCREDIBLY important to have for a society. We NEED to give people the space to feel COMFORTABLE enough to be eccentric…to be WEIRD. We NEED weird people. John Stuart Mill points out in his essay On Liberty…individual freedom…feeling safe enough to express your own creativity or weirdness…this is not just important for an individual…this is important for the health of a society. Societies that DON’T have that privacy for the individual run the risk of falling into despotism or stagnation. Privacy is what gives you the space to define who you are… and HOW you relate to others. And I think some people would say THAT IS THE TRUE COST… of giving up privacy for the security of the surveillance state. Anyway…if you’re wondering where you PERSONALLY stand… when it comes to your views on freedom vs security…the GOOD news is we all just came out of a situation where every one of us had to SHOW OUR HANDS when it comes to how we FEEL about this |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-21|stuff. I’m talking about Covid. Because no matter HOW MANY theoretical conversations you used to have at the dinner table about how you’d stand up to the government… or how necessary it is to sacrifice in the name of the community…situation BEING what it was REALLY showed people where they ACTUALLY stand on things. FACING the fear of the unknown. FACING the social pressure of it all. It really is interesting… how QUICKLY people were willing to say that a DOCTOR NEEDS to sign a card to ALLOW someone to eat at a restaurant…and people were OKAY with this for the GOOD of the COMMUNITY! That’s what we DO in society…we’re ALL in this together!Again, this side of the conversation will say that Covid’s a great example of how the state of nature is NOT what it used to be. There are NEW threats that we need the government to protect us from…and by the way here is the INSIDE of my BODY for you to surveil via the medical establishment. PLEASE take this TRACKING device in my pocket and tell me whether I’ve been in proximity of OTHER people who are carrying the virus. To this person these are just effective |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-22|methods of keeping people safe that are EXTENDING into social institutions. They would say that your PRIVACY… is an INTEREST, not a right. And that when there’s a catastrophe going on in the interest of public health…your individual interest of privacy HAS to take a back seat for a while. OTHER people might say okay, understood. But I hope you don’t mind if fight back for every INCH of that privacy that you try to TAKE from me…because I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS when people GIVE these sorts of freedoms up. They don’t often get them back.There’s a philosopher named Giorgio Agamben who wrote an article actually RIGHT at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, right when EVERYTHING is kicking off…and he MADE a point wondering what life was gonna be like AFTER the world emerges from whatever was about to come with the coronavirus, nobody knew…and his point…much like the last episode we did, was building off of ANOTHER concept from the work of Michel Foucault. Giorgio Agamben talks about MOMENTS in the world that HE calls a state of exception. What is a state of exception? Well, Agamben recognizes that constitutional governments that TYPICALLY are restricted by checks and balances and |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-23|a separation of powers…DURING times of CHAOS…when something CRAZY is going on in the world like a Pandemic disease…the GOVERNMENT goes into what he calls a state of exception…where they need extra constitutional powers to be able to protect people from everything that is going on. What ALSO happens during moments like this is that for the average person…NORMAL REALITY is suspended for a while. Everybody plays by a slightly different set of rules BECAUSE things are so weird. Think of how WEIRD you woulda been wearing a mask in public two weeks before the start of the pandemic. And what Agamben says is that what ALWAYS HAPPENS when we come OUT of one of these states of exception…is that some aspect of reality is developed so that we can DEAL with whatever the pressing ISSUE is…then we DEAL with it…and then AFTERWARD that thing that people ONLY ALLOWED because we were in crisis mode…magically sticks around and is NOW just a normal part of human life. Couple examples of this: first one he gives is barbed wire. Barbed wire… was NOT a common thing that you saw everywhere… UNTIL we fought the first world war and barbed wire became a totally COMMON |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-24|thing in the trench warfare that was going ON at the time. Then the war ended…and barbed wire stuck around. NOW barbed wire is on the fence of every prison, junkyard, people don’t even think TWICE about it when they SEE it. Another example is NUCLEAR power in WW2. Obviously developed… so that we could beat the Germans in a race to an ultimate weapon…and then after it ends the war… it’s adopted as a totally, normal, routine part of modern existence. Giorgio Agamben asks: when it comes to Covid and the state of exception that SO many governments declared…what did the public accept as a NECESSARY part of THAT whole nightmare… that they will blindly accept as a normal, routine part of the world moving forward? He suggests maybe its gonna be that people will see their fellow human beings as merely spreaders of disease instead of actual PEOPLE…maybe it will make people think of human life in terms of mere survival… rather than all of the rich experiences that are possible when you ACCEPT the baked IN RISK to what a human life even is. But regardless, KNOWING what we DO about the invasions of privacy that people accepted during Covid |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-25|for the sake of the good of the community…we HAVE to wonder if what will LINGER is NOT physical things like barbed wire or nuclear power, but a sense of willingness… to BE tracked and controlled in the name of the collective good… that has never really existed before.The sociologist David Lyon has said that what we’re SEEING with the rise of surveillance in recent years…this is not just a minor UPTICK in the amount of surveillance that people are ALLOWING into their lives…when you zoom out and you pay attention to what’s really going on…we are actually living inside of a surveillance culture. He defines surveillance as: “any focused, routine, systematic attention to personal details, for the purpose of control, influence or management.” And when you think about surveillance in THAT way…then SURVEILLANCE is ACTUALLY a PRIMARY COMPONENT of MOST things that people are doing on the internet. We are ALL surveilling EACH OTHER. We’re literally WATCHING people play video games. We’re going to a social media feed to get the most recent surveillance footage that people take of themselves. People WEAR…WATCHES and health trackers that turn the DETAILS of their BODIES into data points, remind them to stretch. Remind them |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-26|to breathe. People literally carry around a tracking device as they walk down the street constantly on camera from one angle or another…and DON’T feel weird about it AT ALL! And I’m not saying ANY of this like look at these morons who don’t care about being on camera…this REALITY…STARTS to make the case for a NEW type of controlling society that’s emerging talked about by Gilles Deleuze towards the end of his life. He writes about it in his famous essay Postscript on the Societies of Control. And again if we’re TRYING to figure out much like Foucault did…WHERE EXACTLY people’s behavior is being directed…and we’re doing this to TRY to better identify how power operates in the world…then ONE thing Deleuze says we’re GOING to have to do for this MODERN day and age… is to move PAST Foucault’s old model of the Disciplinary society where people’s behavior is drilled and normalized by the totally SEPARATE institutions of the school the factory the hospital etc. If LIFE for a person USED to be something where the institutions of society funnel people into different lanes in life… or what Deleuze calls enclosures…you know you go to school, after you’re done with school |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-27|you go into the workforce, when you go home you’re part of a family unit, when you’re at church you’re part of a religious institution…if life USED to be something where EACH of these different enclosures were SEPARATE… for Deleuze, life has NOW become one where ALL of them have started to blend together into one. You’re no longer just a STUDENT…when you’re in school. Learning and RELEARNING is now a LIFELONG PROCESS that someone is NEVER done with. Factories are no longer even a THING as Foucault talked about them. COMPANIES are now a thing. And COMPANIES operate based on a TOTALLY DIFFERENT kind of ethos than a factory did. When you’re AT a company…there’s a CONSTANT FEELING now of what Deleuze calls metastability…see back in the days when people worked in the factories that Foucault talks about…THAT situation was very predictable… it was a CONTROLLED environment…there was a very CLEAR EQUILIBRIUM that the business was going for, they want to have the HIGHEST PRODUCTION LEVELS for the LOWEST POSSIBLE WAGES. And that whole situation at the factory was rigid, structured, and FILLED with behavioral expectations, for sure. But NOWADAYS in the corporate world…there’s more of a metastability…bonuses, stock options, incentive packages, |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-28|pitting employees up against each other for the sake of TEAM BUILDING PURPOSES…this is ALL EVIDENCE of what Deleuze thinks is a NEW KIND of control mechanism that’s going on that’s far more omnipresent, and fluid.See if in the Disciplinary type of society that Foucault talks about your JOB was to be a good student when you were in school, RESET and be a good worker at your company, RESET and be a good partner when you get home…if that society was about homogenizing human activity with norms and taboos. Then in the society of control that Deleuze’s talking about…NOW the way your life is controlled is that it’s MODULATED, he says. You’re never JUST a student or JUST a worker or JUST a partner anymore…in a sense you’re ALWAYS ALL of them… all the time. In a sense you are NEVER really off the clock of ANY of those roles in the world. Your boss calls you at 10pm, you pick up the phone…and you INSTANTLY… fluidly…. need to adapt into this OTHER social role that you play. When you’re at work…your MOM texts you…you are BUT A TEXT MESSAGE AWAY…from needing to fluidly transition into being a family member, |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-29|a son, a daughter. Point is PEOPLE aren’t navigating these binary institutions anymore where there’s rigid rules defining each one of them…and as a RESULT… people aren’t following as many rigid social norms as they USED to…they’re told to be whoever you WANT when navigating all of these roles in life…to Deleuze they may even SEE the fact that they’re different from other people around them as a testament to how FREE they are. But simultaneously he says…almost paradoxically…at the SAME TIME they feel so FREE because they’re not conforming to norms…their behavior is MORE tracked and MORE modified at a GRANULAR level than EVER BEFORE…and most people DON’T even think TWICE about it.I mean if you’re looking for examples of POWER where there’s not necessarily a GUN being pointed to your head.To Deleuze people in a society of control are not INDIVIDUALS anymore. They’re what he calls: DIVIDUALS. And what he means is actually something very interesting. At SOME points in history…the primary LANGUAGE that’s been used to CONTROL people’s behavior is AT THE LEVEL of mass psychology. You wanna CONTROL people…you use nationalism or culture, some higher level cause to get people moving. THEN there’s times in history where people |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-30|are controlled at the level of the individual…think of how priests would have an influence on an individual person, people would CONFESS to the priest, and they’d USE that information to guide their behavior all the way down to the specific stuff they’re going to be doing that week.Well IN the society of control…people are broken down at levels that are BENEATH the level of the individual. The language used to understand people’s behavior NOW…is just a small piece of their behavior that’s measurable and predictable by algorithms. For example what YOU ARE to amazon.com that wants to direct your behavior is not a person…you’re a collection of shopping tendencies. What you ARE to the place that you get your news from is not a whole person…you’re just something that clicks on certain thumbnails over others during certain HOURS. The language that’s used to CONTROL your behavior now potentially gathers information about you in every situation that you find yourself in. THERE IS NO DIVISION BETWEEN these institutions in the way there USED to be. It’s ALL blended into one…for example… it USED to be that you go to the store when you want to buy something. And when you’re at |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-31|the store, maybe you’re subjected to certain marketing tactics, maybe people try to sell you on something, these are old style examples of other people trying to direct your behavior. But in a society of control…you can be NOT EVEN a PLACE… where you want to be buying ANYTHING…you’re not a shopper at this moment…you could just be wanting to read an article about how to clean the stain out of your jacket…and on the side banner of the website is something trying to sell you soap because you’re looking at that article. For Gilles Deleuze…we are ALL moving into a reality… where our social roles as workers, as learners, as citizens…these are NOW more than EVER before…. in a constant state of flux. The constraints… that define the details of our lives that USED to be very FIXED THINGS… are now being continuously updated, and modulated. In this new form of a society, the methods used to control people… become MORE pervasive… and SIMULTANEOUSLY more flexible because NOW it operates based on a continuous spectrum…instead of through binary or fixed institutions. For Gilles Deleuze…in 1990 when he WRITES this thing…we are on the VERGE…of a MAJOR SHIFT in the way |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-32|that people’s behavior is going to be controlled in the world. Now whether you think Deleuze’s analysis of the control society is dead on accurate, whether you think its a bit too metaphorical or even just speculative…regardless, theories LIKE THIS ONE… are important. If we EVER want to be able to know where to draw the lines in terms of freedom and security…we HAVE to be able to know EXACTLY what mechanisms are being used to control people. It’s not good enough to just look at the government or to blame everything on social institutions. Look, the GOAL of the episode today was obviously not to SOLVE the dilemma between freedom and security. And I think it’s important to GET the idea out of your head right now that there is any sort of EASY ANSWER, or FIXED ESSENCE of EXACTLY how much FREEDOM or SECURITY that a society needs. The sociologist Zygmund Baumen said that this is a social dilemma… that is CONSTANT. It’s not GOING anywhere. It’s been going on for thousands of years…and it will CONTINUE to go on as long as we have deliberative democracies where we are STILL somewhat in CHARGE of the levels of each of |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-33|these that the public wants. Point is: if everybody woke up tomorrow and decided to agree on everything…both EXTREMES of the freedom/security debate COULD come true…we COULD be living in George Orwell’s 1984…or we COULD make surveillance… illegal. Now hopefully it’s obvious that BOTH of those outcomes…would be completely SILLY if we actually DID them…it would be SILLY to not use surveillance…it’s an incredibly powerful tool…and just like with OTHER things like the police or taxation…the question is NOT whether we NEED them but how do we structure things in a way where they don’t get out of control. I think it’s important to try to see your personal decisions in the greater CONTEXT of this ongoing TENSION between freedom and security. Because in 100 years when people look back on THIS time period…and they SEE the issues that we faced in OUR time of increased surveillance, covid restrictions, tracking cookies…it will be CLEAR to THEM…that the average person, the individual VOTE that you cast when you accept all cookies on a website for example…THAT vote mattered. You should at least know the consequences of accepting all cookies. Look if someone offered you a bag of cookies in real life…you would KNOW… what |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-34|you’re doing…you KNOW what the consequences are to your stomach when you accept all cookies in THAT situation…this isn’t like other issues where you can throw your hands up in the air and say what am I REALLY going to DO about it…you’re VOTING in one direction or another whether you’re AWARE of it or not. One of the GOALS of this episode is just to bring light to the fact that if you are living in a deliberative democracy…YOU really ARE the line of defense against WHATEVER it is that is about to come with this stuff. Again you don’t gotta be Ben Franklin whittling a wooden goose ready to DIE in the name of your freedoms here. No, EVERY generation… NEEDS the INFORMED VOTERS of their time to do the work, to educate themselves, to hold the line when it comes to how much freedom they’re willing to sacrifice. In THIS sense… its a lot like a lot of OTHER important issues…you know they say the arc of the universe is long and it bends towards justice… or towards freedom in this case…and that it doesn’t BEND in that direction by gravity they say. It is iterative. It takes people |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm-35|showing up every day and casting their votes in the right direction… and over time, the people eventually decide where the lines are drawn. If you live in a world where you run the risk of getting trapped inside of a digital panopticon, then as somebody aware of that fact, there’s a sense in which there’s no point in sitting around being scared about it… all you can do is do your best to understand the state of this tension between freedom and security, understand what the intelligent arguments are on either side and then show up for whatever side you’re gonna show up for. This argument WILL KEEP GOING. And when it does…when SO many people around the world can’t seem to agree on exactly what the lines are here that should be drawn…some people might look around them at that, see people arguing…and think gah the world’s coming to an end. But ANOTHER possibility might be… that society isn’t FAILING if everyone’s ARGUING about this stuff. It MAY actually be a sign that more people are PARTICIPATING in the DISCUSSIONS that we need people to be having to KEEP this stuff in check. I know a lot of you were excited |2023-11-28T20:18:39.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4ybpm|187|Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-0|  So last episode we ended by talking about generative AI and the potential impacts it may have on society. How SOME philosophers think it could lead to an economic utopia…others think it could lead to a panopticon. But there HAD to have been at least a FEW of you out there that HEARD the word Panopticon… and thought what in GOD’S name IS that? And there’s no doubt SOME of you out there who KNOW what the Panopticon is who thought why would ANYBODY think this world we’re heading for will be a prison?Well by the end of the episode today I’ll try to explain why SOME philosophers think it’s gonna go that way…And I guess I wanna start by saying that I realize a good portion of last episode was spent trying to bring people up to speed on the STATE of generative AI right now… and I want to double down and say that I THINK all that context is necessary… to understand the WIDER ANGLE philosophical lens that this stuff can be viewed through. As I said towards the end of last episode… I just THINK that we are something fundamentally DIFFERENT, than the medieval peasants that |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-1|didn’t have a hope in the world of seeing what was coming with the industrial revolution. Part of the value of philosophy in THIS world that we’re living in…. is that it can help you SEE the broader, historical trends that you’re a part of… so that you’re not someone… who’s just a HOSTAGE to them. I’m not trying to say anything too controversial I’m really just trying to echo the sentiment of Socrates here that the EXAMINED LIFE…CONTINUING to ask better and better questions…this is something CRUCIAL if you want to SURVIVE in today’s world. And I guess… let’s continue that journey here… by trying to understand how a fairly RANDOM idea fromall the way back in the 1780’s actually applies to the world we’re living in… right now. I’m talking about asking the question: what would it would LOOK like… if a philosopher… sat down and applied everything in that big brain of theirs to the task…of trying to design the BEST PRISON that they could possibly come up with. What would that prison look like? The philosopher that DID this in the 1780’s was Jeremy Bentham. And the idea for a prison he came up with… was called the |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-2|Panopticon. Some important context to know about Jeremy Bentham is that he’s doing his work during a time when RATIONALITY is being applied to EVERYTHING in the world to try to make it better. It was called the age of reason after all. Systems of government, economics, morality, EVERYTHING was gonna be made BETTER when we use REASON to design the way our institutions operate, THAT was the plan. And for Jeremy Bentham…this idea went ALL the way down to the very ARCHITECTURE of the buildings that people DO stuff in. He looks around him… at the world that HE’S living in… and he sees these PRISONS where the inmates are being treated HORRIBLY. FILTHY living conditions, disease is rampant, the GUARDS at the prisons have to physically beat the prisoners to be able to keep them scared and in line. Bentham asks the question: is there a way to DO all of this in a smarter way? Do we REALLY need to be BEATING people in order to keep them in line? And what he comes UP with… is to redesign the actual prison BUILDING. His thinking is: what if we DESIGN the prison…where the cells of the prisoners are in a circular |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-3|shape, FORMING a perimeter…and then in the MIDDLE of that CIRCLE…is a GIANT tower that can see in all directions. But THEN he says…what if through various different kinds of shades on the windows of the cells you could create a situation… where someone who’s standing in this tower in the center of everything…can SEE INSIDE of the cell of every single prisoner…but the prisoners would NEVER be able to know if they were being watched or not. Think of two way mirrors in today’s world. Same concept. What the ARCHITECTURE of this building would INEVITABLY create…is an ENVIRONMENT where the prisoners ALWAYS have to self-regulate. Because if you can NEVER know for SURE whether you’re being WATCHED or not… then you have to behave at all times AS IF you’re being watched. And for Jeremy Bentham in the 1700’s…this is GREAT news.. and NOT JUST when it comes to PRISONS! I mean it was CERTAINLY… GOOD for prisons…you know simply by changing the design of the building you no longer gotta have guards standing around watching everyone beating people if they step out of line…now people will essentially become their OWN guards. You turn the prisoners themselves into part of the |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-4|mechanism that is IMPRISONING them. It’s GENIUS…and its INCREDIBLY efficient as well…you don’t even REALLY have to be watching them…just the THREAT that someone COULD be watching… is enough to get people to act in a TOTALLY different way that is better for everyone. The even BETTER news for Bentham was that this design…. DOESN’T just set things up in a way that’s better for PRISONERS…this SAME CONCEPT… could apply to factories to make people better workers. This could be used in SCHOOLS to produce better students make sure they don’t cheat. Military barracks to produce better soldiers. It was…the PRISON of dreams to Jeremy Bentham. Like the titanic. A MAGICAL place. Where this magic happens, SIMPLY… by there being a severe asymmetry in knowledge. THAT’S how it WORKS! The observers know everything…and the observed barely knows anything. And WHO woulda thought we could make improvements to SO MANY AREAS of society JUST by doing THAT. But as you can probably imagine…there’s a DARK SIDE to the Panopticon. Fast forward almost 200 years later to the work of the philosopher Michel Foucault. Michel Foucault writes a book released in 1975 called Discipline and Punish, and IN IT…he reintroduces Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon and |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-5|finally gives credit… to JUST how influential this design for a PRISON has become over the years. Because to him…this idea from Bentham was actually SO GOOD…that it NOW pervades practically every major institution in western society in 1975. See part of what Foucault is saying is that if you are a government… or ANYTHING that has power for that matter…we don’t live in a WORLD anymore where you gotta crack people in their grapefuit lookin’ head with a wiffle ball bat to keep them DOING what you want them to be doing…that kind of stuff’s so old fashioned these days. In 1975, he says, what you DO to keep people under control… is you just control the minutiae of human life…you create STANDARDS of what is normal and abnormal…and then the PEOPLE will POLICE THEMSELVES, much like in the panopticon. See to Foucault…there is a CLEAR relationship in modern societies between KNOWLEDGE and POWER…and it goes on at multiple different LEVELS. The people in power… CONTROL what knowledge is. They control what constitutes knowledge. They control WHO gets tenure and gets to disseminate knowledge. They control the NORMS and TABOOS of social institutions… and therefore CONTROL how people view them, and then |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-6|how people VIEW themselves within society at large. Just as an example of how all this stuff OPERATES… think of something like education…which often PRESENTS to people as something that’s unbiased and neutral. It’s often expected…that AS teachers, AS professors…you’re not trying to bring any BIAS into the equation here…you’re just trying to spread knowledge about the facts of the world. That’s what you might EXPECT when you go to school. But just consider how that ACTUALLY plays out in the real world…take a random example of something that’s TAUGHT to people. Something like… history…and because I’m an American I’ll stay in my own lane here and I’ll just talk about American history right now. Okay.Well not many people would deny that there’s a LOT of different ways you can TEACH someone american history. 70 years ago or so… american history may have been taught by playing up a particular narrative…maybe by talking about the glorious american revolution, then we fought a civil war to end slavery, then we peacefully stayed out of WW2 until we were viciously attacked and then had no CHOICE but to step in and then we helped save the world from the evil nazis. You could TEACH |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-7|american history in that WAY…and someone like Foucault would say that when you TEACH it in that way…it BREEDS a certain kind of ATTITUDE in the student about their position in american history… and it effects the way they see themselves in the world. Now contrast THAT version of american history… with a DIFFERENT one that’s been discussed more recently…where the decision by people has been to teach students more about the DETAILS about specific things… the DETAILS of slavery in the US…the DETAILS of the treatment of native americans of women’s suffrage…you CHANGE the perspective that the narrative is COMING from…and low and behold some people have a PROBLEM with that version of history because they say it’s CREATING a generation of people who HATE the country, that it’s TEACHING them to identify the country SOLELY on its worst qualities. But again…OTHER people would say that the American history from 70 YEARS ago…  created a generation of people that sweep the details of the past under the rug and just focus on the victories. Now whether EITHER of these narratives FULLY embody the truth doesn’t really matter, because the POINT IS… what we HAVE in an education system to Foucault is |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-8|NOT some neutral enterprise that’s trying to offer up the TRUTH about the universe…no, like in the panopticon, there is an ASYMMETRY in knowledge and power. The people in power that control the curriculums in education determine what KNOWLEDGE is…and simply by DOING THAT…they then end up determining what NORMAL is.And BECAUSE they determine what NORMAL is…they also determine what an ANOMALY is to that norm. Then, to Foucault, they come up with social CATEGORIES that LABEL someone as one of these anomalies in a negative way, which then encourages a system of conformity. For example, you can DIFFER from the norm politically… to an extent…but you go too far…and NOW you magically become an extremist, or a terrorist. You’re hit with that label for being too far outside the norm. You can DEVIATE from the norm psychologically, to an EXTENT. Go outside the norm too much and now you become mentally ill. There were SEXUAL norms during the time of Foucault…go too far outside of them and now you become a PERVERT. NONE of this is Foucault saying that norms shouldn’t exist or don’t serve a social function…he’s MERELY trying to understand the ARCHITECTURE of HOW modern power dynamics work…and |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-9|the labels of these social ANOMALIES play an important role in how it’s all maintained.   JUST LIKE in the Panopticon you create an ASYMMETRY in levels of KNOWLEDGE between the observers and the observed…and JUST LIKE in the Panopticon, people internalize normative behaviors and end up regulating themselves to GO ALONG with them. Forget EVER thinking too far outside the bounds of what the approved KNOWLEDGE is of the day…no one wants to deal with the social backlash of all that. Who wants to be called an extremist or a failure or mentally ill or erratic.It is NOT a coincidence to Foucault…that in the world in 1975… prisons start to look like factories which start to look like schools which start to look like hospitals which start to look like military barracks. To Foucault…Jeremy Bentham was RIGHT…the Panopticon truly DOES make better prisoners, students and workers…it creates an environment… where conformity is rewarded… and just like the prisoner in a cell in the panopticon…it creates an environment where you have to ALWAYS be worried and can never really relax. Now THIS is the view of the Panopticon…. in 1975. But the prison that people fear’s emerging NOW… fifty years LATER…it’s SIMILAR in some |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-10|ways… but it’s MORE diabolical. Foucault’d be having fits of giggling laughter and blacking out if he was alive today. To help build the case for WHY…want to talk about some interesting ideas from the work of a philosopher named Stephen Cave…who, among other things, thinks that something INCREDIBLY important that we need to acknowledge if we WANT to understand the state of the society we have now…is that we have to look at the role of INTELLIGENCE, all throughout history…as SOMETHING that’s been used as a justification for dominating and controlling people.He says you know when we talk about intelligence in casual conversation…it’s really easy for it to seem to people like it's a politically NEUTRAL thing that’s going on. That when you say someone’s stupid…ALL you’re REALLY saying is something very innocent…all you’re just saying…is that we can’t really trust them with fireworks when they’re alone. You’re just saying they’re someone who probably drives a really loud vehicle of some sort, seems to be some kind of correlation between intelligence and how loud you are…the idea is that all you’re saying when someone scores low on an intelligence test is that there’s something about their mental faculties that’s LOWER than |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-11|usual. But the reality he says is that historically… intelligence has been used to justify things that are absolutely horrible. Historically… just the way that its played out…to SAY that someone is STUPIDER than someone else is really saying something GREATER about what they should be allowed to DO within a society. About what RIGHTS they may have as a person. He says we have this long standing idea in the western world, VERY politically entrenched at this point… that the more intelligent and educated you are…the more it makes sense for YOU to be the person… that’s in CHARGE of everything.  Now…let’s just HOLD ON there for a second. Because I think an OBVIOUS response BACK to this could be well that’s not a WESTERN world thing…that’s a HUMAN thing. As people…we just NATURALLY want the smartest people we have to be making the decisions near the top. But that’s not actually how history has gone. There’s LOTS of reasons people have been in CHARGE in the past that have NOTHING to DO with intelligence. The strongest would rule in a lot of cases in a might makes right sort of situation, people would inherit positions of power being the relative of a |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-12|former ruler an aristocratic situation, people would use religious reasons to determine the next leader…point is: this whole idea…that the most intelligent and educated among us should be the ones that are ruling…Stephen Cave says FAR FROM this being the NORM…this was actually a radical IDEA in the ancient Greek world where the foundations of our political philosophy were laid.  And when it comes to the value of intelligence from a philosophical perspective…philosophers like Plato he says… were OBSESSED with intelligence…it’s just back then… given the non-existent field of psychology and how we understand intelligence today… to BE obsessed with intelligence back then was to be obsessed with one important SUBSET of intelligence…called REASON. REASON it was said by philosophers is what separates us from the animals. REASON is part of the ESSENCE of what makes us human. And for Plato when he WRITES the Republic and designs the structure of an ideal society…not surprisingly… he puts the PHILOSOPHER KING as the person who should be in charge of it all. In other words, the guy in CHARGE should be the guy who uses reason to gain a better understanding of ALL the different components of society, AND the guy who is |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-13|HIGHLY educated since BIRTH to be a ruler.Now again, this is a RADICAL IDEA in ancient greece at the time. And it’s not LONG Stephen Cave says before Plato’s student Aristotle comes along and forms what is NOW known…. as one of the first philosophically grounded, naturalistic social hierarchies. The THINKING is at the time: that the REALITY of the world is one where SOME people… are MORE rational and educated than OTHER people. So if you’re gonna TRY to STRUCTURE a society in the best way possible… and you want to do it in a way where people can do what their naturally BEST at… and thus provide as much VALUE as possible to that society…then OBVIOUSLY…the people that are the most rational and educated… should BE the ones that are leading. Again the THINKING is: that setup’s not just better for THEM…that’s better for EVERYONE…. all the way down the LINE. People that are better suited to LEAD…should LEAD…why would you want the town drunk standin up there ask not what your country can do for you? No, you want a certain kind of person. Now, what inevitably comes OUT of that kind of setup though…is a hierarchy of rationality. If |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-14|the most RATIONAL EDUCATED MEN are supposed to be the ones that are in charge…then LESS rational people… should NEVER be considered for leadership positions. So at the time Stephen Cave says in a world where WOMEN are seen as more “sentimental and flighty” than men are…women were seen as just better suited to serving OTHER ROLES in society where their natural abilities could be more accentuated. Move further DOWN the hierarchy and you come across people of other SKIN colors or genetics…people who are viewed at this time as not too smart…but REALLY PHYSICALLY gifted…so WITHIN this social hierarchy the way it was SEEN is that their natural GIFT…was to use their BODY to contribute to society. And this goes all the way down to animals and then trees and rocks. The lower your level of rationality and education the less you have a right to be LEADING a society. And this WAY of looking at things gets EMBEDDED into western philosophy so deep… that it’s still there in the work of Descartes over 1500 years later…even LATER than THAT you got Kant saying that rational beings are ends in themselves, NON-rational beings only have a relative value as means and are |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-15|therefore called things…Later on people use intelligence to justify the age of colonialism…that these less intelligent people across the world NEED European culture to be able to CIVILIZE THEM. In fact it would be INHUMANE for us to NOT govern these people who CLEARLY are not as capable of governing themselves. You have VARIOUS instances of intelligence levels being used to justify slavery. There’s EVEN examples of people being STERILIZED because they have lower intelligence. THAT’s one that’s pretty crazy…Stephen Cave explains that Charles Darwin had a cousin…and his name was Sir Francis Galton. He’s typically thought of as being the originator of psychometrics and a leading proponent at the time… of eugenics. See when Darwin writes the origin of species, Sir Francis over there gets inspired and thinks oh, well intelligence must be something that people are BORN with…and obviously…just like a bird with a longer beak needs to breed with another bird with a longer beak and they’ll have long beak babies…the way you make the HUMAN species smarter is you take the smartest people you can find and you breed them together with the OTHER smartest people. Not only that, but anybody who’s NOT that intelligent…we should tell |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-16|them NOT to breed…cause they’re only making the species dumber the more kids they have. Why would we ever want that?But he has a problem: how do you find OUT who the smartest people are? Well you would NEED a scientific WAY of MEASURING people’s intelligence. So Sir Francis Galton creates… an intelligence test to be able to measure it. As Stephen Cave says, “Thus eugenics and the intelligence test were born together.” Because while there were OTHER intelligence tests before that one…the fact is…tens of THOUSANDS of women over the course of the next few decades… were forcibly sterilized…after scoring POORLY on one of these intelligence tests. We don’t even draw the LINE at just human beings…jesus we even EAT animals, we actually chew things up, swallow them and use them for FUEL… and for some people that’s okay because a chicken’s less intelligent and has a less rich experience of the world than we do. Point is: when you SAY something… about someone’s INTELLIGENCE level…you’re NOT just making an innocent claim that someone’s STUPID, like hey they’re just the kind of person that really thinks they won $100 when someone texts them. Given the history we HAVE you are POTENTIALLY |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-17|making ALL KINDS of OTHER claims about what that person should be allowed to do with their life BECAUSE they’re less intelligent…now…not ONLY is Stephen Cave saying that we need to be AWARE of this history…but another one of the points he’s making with all this has to do with Artificial Intelligence. Because he says IF we’re living in a world where there are masses of people worried about AGI and superintelligent robots taking over the world…well, it makes SENSE why we’re so scared of it. We’ve already set the precedent over and over again throughout history that if a being is more intelligent or educated than another being…they can essentially do whatever they want to them. Of COURSE we’d be worried about bringing a super intelligence to life. And when we START to think about machine algorithms and the progressively expanding role that they’re playing in our lives…as these things that are FAR MORE EDUCATED than us that can recognize patterns and tell you what you want before YOU even know what you want…could it be that there’s a sense of WILLINGNESS from people to OUTSOURCE these sorts of decisions they’re helping with to something that seems more intelligent than they |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-18|are? And could that WILLINGNESS be one FACTOR…that LIMITS the freedom of someone in the modern world who voluntarily PLACES themselves inside of a DIGITAL form of a Panopticon? What would a digital panopticon even FEEL like if you were in it? Would you ever even know?Before we explore that possibility deeper I think it’ll be helpful to consider ANOTHER interesting idea from the work of Stephen Cave where he examines the concept of free will. Because IF we’re interested in understanding how EXACTLY a digital panopticon would limit someone’s FREEDOM…then having some common language when it comes to understanding what precisely CONSTITUTES a free choice… is going to help us out a lot. Because see, Stephen Cave DOESN’T talk about free will the same way WE did in our free will and determinism episode that just happened. HE’s more interested in quantifying what exactly do we MEAN when we SAY that someone MADE a free choice. As the Director of the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence…and a philosopher interested in trying to better understand all SORTS of mental states…Stephen Cave says that if we’re WILLING to think of how intelligent someone is in terms of an IQ or an |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-19|intelligence quotient… and if we’re willing to think of how emotionally intelligent someone is in terms of an EQ or an emotional quotient…is it…THAT crazy of an idea… to think that we MAY be able to have a FREEDOM quotient…or an FQ… that measures how FREE somebody is when making a decision?This may SEEM like kind of a wacky idea on the surface…but as Stephen Cave says… we’re actually already MAKING these sorts of considerations in an INFORMAL way in legal proceedings all the time. A judge will look at a case…they will consider all the evidence, they’ll consider WHO the person is and their history…they’ll weigh things like the intent behind the act, the consequences of the act, and after referencing ALL SORTS of different psychological and philosophical measuring sticks…they will DETERMINE what a suitable PUNISHMENT is for the person, and part of that is DETERMINING how FREE they were to make the choice they did. THAT kind of stuff goes on in court rooms all the time. But the question is: WHY does that process have to ONLY go on inside the head of the judge? Why is there not a more scientifically quantifiable way of measuring this kind |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-20|of stuff? Just to be clear he says…totally realize we’re not quite THERE yet…okay we still have a lot we need to understand about the capacities that underlie behavioral freedom…but is it TOO early to be thinking about this FQ… as a potential possibility in the future? Because ONE thing’s FOR SURE to him…the WAY we’re talking about free will right now is NOT satisfying anybody…we NEED a NEW WAY…SO MANY of the ideas we HAVE about it come from a pre-scientific age where we were just sort of spitballing. But it’s an UNDERSTANDABLE place to BE in, because the challenges here are big: HOW do you even start to DEFINE how much FREE WILL somebody has…IF that was something you wanted to do? And while he acknowledges… there’s no consensus on this whatsoever…he says if you wanted to get STARTED trying to connect the dots between the different ways people have defined it …you could say that free will has three primary components. 1. The ability to generate options for oneself. 2. The ability to choose. And 3. The ability to pursue one or more of those options after choosing. THREE DIFFERENT STAGES. And what you’ll NOTICE is that EACH ONE of these |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-21|STAGES… requires a totally different SKILL that’s going to have to factor IN when determining someone’s FQ score.Let’s look at them one by one. The FIRST stage: being able to generate options for yourself. This is the part of ANY TRULY FREE CHOICE that you make in life…where you’re faced with a decision point…and you have to rack your brain to come up with all the possible options for you to choose from. The thinking here is that generally speaking…if someone doesn’t HAVE a lot of options or if a person can’t SEE very many options to choose from… we generally don’t consider them to be AS FREE as someone, who had a LOT of options. The SECOND stage was the ability to CHOOSE one of those options…THE SKILL that’s required in this one is being able to REASON. Critically thinking, weighing the pros and cons of different decisions. Anyone who MAKES a free choice is at SOME point going to need these skills to be able to choose the best option to move forward with…and the LAST stage: is the ability to actually PURSUE one these options…in other words: this is the part of free will that is connected to |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-22|something like what we typically call… the WILL…or someone’s ability to EXECUTE the thing they’ve CHOSEN as the best option. There’s a sense in which you NEED to be able to do ALL THREE of these skills to SOME extent to be able to MAKE a free choice. And you can imagine how people are going to be skilled in EACH of these different areas in slightly different WAYS. Sometimes it can be TOTALLY imbalanced. For example, somebody could REALLY struggle with the FIRST skill, they might STRUGGLE to creatively come up with a lot of different options to CHOOSE from…maybe they only ever see five different options or so…but it never really HURTS them that much in the LIFE because on the OTHER hand they’re REALLY good at the WILL side of things and they’re always able to EXECUTE an option that is MOSTLY GOOD for them. On the other hand you could have someone who can see ALL the options in the world, they have 50 or 100 options to CHOOSE FROM…they’re GREAT at reasoning between them and choosing the best one…but they really struggle with being able to EXECUTE the choice, so their FQ score would actually be really low. Stephen |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-23|Cave says that what we MIGHT FIND, if we started MEASURING things in this way…is that PRISONERS… behind bars in particular…might have a lower FQ score on average when compares to the REST of the general population. MEANING that they’re people that either LACKED options to choose from, lacked the ability to think critically about the best choice, or had difficulty executing the RIGHT choice. Maybe all three.You THINK about the way prisons are designed…mostly low stimulation environments with very little decision making…and Stephen Cave says you wonder if maybe putting prisoners in a situation where they can’t develop any of these skills that would RAISE their FQ…you wonder if there might be a better way to do it. More than that he says…IF FQ, was a score that was AS PREVALENT as IQ in terms of public awareness…we may find that it BENEFITS society GREATLY… to NURTURE these skills that RAISE the FQ of the population at large. And in THAT world…WHY NOT focus on these skills in schools? If we DID…wouldn’t that just create more empowered citizens?But… then again…what if you didn’t want to be CREATING empowered citizens. What if instead, whether by a single organized body or a |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-24|bunch of different distributed organizations all competing for people’s attention…what if the goal was NOT to create people whose free will score was as HIGH as possible…but to create an environment where each one of these three stages of free will is systematically weakened?When you think about the possibility of a DIGITAL Panopticon like this…it really does start to raise the question of what exactly IS freedom? Like Isaiah Berlin talks about IS FREEDOM SIMPLY freedom from constraints…is it SIMPLY just not being PREVENTED from doing certain things? Or… does freedom ALSO necessarily REQUIRE that people have the skills and opportunities to be able to pursue the life they want to live? Say you WANTED…to CONTROL a population of people. And SAY you’re living in the modern world, where, as we’ve established…the best and most efficient way to CONTROL a population isn’t by beating them when they get out of line, but to create an ASYMMETRY of knowledge in a Panopticon. How would you do it? If you WEREN’T able to LOCK people inside of cages? How would you limit EACH STAGE of their freedom that we just talked about?Well let’s start with the first one: limiting the OPTIONS people have to |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-25|CHOOSE from. Should be said: this is not a new idea for keeping people under control. Governments have been doing this for centuries. Of COURSE…governments pass LAWS…they create fines and regulations…but THAT only covers a relatively small NUMBER of things that we don’t want people to do. To REALLY be able to control a population…governments realized you have to give people a limited, state-approved STORY to believe in about what’s going on around them. This is why so many governments use propaganda. This is the classic asymmetry in knowledge. This is why, if you wanted to CONTROL a group…you would pass laws that would not allow certain groups to be educated. This is why abusive people in GENERAL limit the information of the people they’re ABUSING. An abusive parent doesn’t want their kid going to school and talking to their TEACHERS about what’s going on in the house. An abusive spouse doesn’t want the person they’re abusing having FRIENDS and TALKING to them about what’s going on…they’ll tell them what’s going on is WRONG. Limiting someone’s options is a powerful way to limit their freedom. And it is BUILT IN to Foucault’s analysis of controlling social institutions and the norms and taboos of |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-26|a society. We talked about it before. But if in 1975 FOUCAULT feared a Panopticon where we control the minutiae of people’s lives at the level of the institution…what if we could all of sudden… through the technology of machine algorithms and the ever expanding sophistication of Artificial Intelligence…what if we could NOW control the minutiae of people’s lives ALL the way down to the level of the individual transaction. What if you were living in a world where everything that is recommended to you from the stuff that you buy to the news stories you read… was ultimately controlled by an AI that is building a progressively more detailed profile on you with every ad that you click, every browser window you open, every video you watch, the exact point that you STOP watching the video it knows that too and MUCH more… what if this was ALL data being GATHERED to create an ongoing, cumulative PROFILE on you to be able to SELL to you better, or be able to know what you’re UP to. Oh wait no that’s not a WHAT IF…that’s already HAPPENING. Everybody KNOWS this. It’s not surprising. What MAY be surprising to you though is the |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-27|rate at which these PROFILES of people are becoming more LEGIBLE for companies and governments to READ. See they’ve HAD MOUNTAINS of data about your behavior to sift through for YEARS now. The real question has always been what can they REALLY KNOW…about any ONE person with the filters they could RUN the data through. What that you’re into philosophy? That you looked at baby blue paint on the home depot website? Someone grab the reynolds wrap and make me a helmet over here. In the past it hasn’t really been LEGIBLE information. Well the MORE sophisticated the technology of the AI gets…the more COMPLEX THE PATTERNS are that it can recognize in your behavior. And we’ve SEEN this development coming for years it STARTED with algorithms…then along came machine learning…then from WITHIN MACHINE LEARNING came DEEP learning where they added neural networks into the equation and now we’re creating AI even more focused than THAT. On the corporate side: we already KNOW that companies have been trying to track and predict our behavior for YEARS. These balding dudes in wingtips are literally frothing at the mouth to be able to predict what you’re gonna do next. And on the GOVERNMENT side: in |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-28|the United States at least… we already KNOW about programs like PRISM and Boundless Information that track internet activity, your emails, text messages, phone calls. We already KNOW they USED to compile it all into a giant data center and then RUN these massive amounts of data through FILTERS…where if certain words or subjects come up…people are FLAGGED as THREATS for further review. We KNOW that was going on 10 years ago when Edward Snowden leaked it. And as HE says what…even if PRISM ended, do you REALLY think programs like that aren’t STILL going on? Do you think they won’t USE the ever expanding sophistication of AI to be able to create a MORE detailed, granular profile on who you are? What happens when AI becomes sophisticated enough that they don’t NEED real people like Snowden analyzing the people who are getting flagged? Does it create a space where there’s no longer room for whistleblowers? Will the machines KEEP the secrets… for the people that are in CHARGE of these programs?More than that…doesn’t this term…FLAGGING someone for anomalous behavior…start to bear a STRANGE resemblance to the way Foucault talks about society labeling people as social anomalies? Because that’s the thing…maybe |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-29|right now your emails only get flagged if you’re explicitly talking about bombing an endangered species of chipmunk…but in the future…with AI ALREADY in CHINA being advanced enough to spot a SINGLE person in a sea of people who is acting in an anomalous way…do you think in the future what GETS someone FLAGGED… could become things far more granular as well?Given what we KNOW about how there is a direct relationship between the accepted knowledge of the day and the people in power…think of how an environment where something is constantly MONITORING every article you read, EVERY idea you consider…think of how that Panopticon like situation has the potential to impact people’s education. Their development. Their personality. Real question: do YOU right now…ever have PRIVATE conversations with people you trust… about concepts you DON’T agree with that you would NEVER talk about publicly because its irresponsible to…but nonetheless these are CRUCIALLY important conversations to your own development because they allow you to entertain ideas without the fear of social backlash. Yeah, me too! All the time. But if you’re living in a world where you can’t know whether every conversation you’re having is being listened to…whether every digital fingerprint you leave |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-30|isn’t being cataloged and recorded into a profile that represents YOU. Would you be a little more hesitant about the stuff that you read? Would you be a little more cautious about the conversations you’re having? Surveillance IMPACTS people’s moral development. This is why CONSTANT surveillance is such an important ASPECT of many religions. God is always watching. It affects the WAY that people behave. It affects the IDEAS that people are willing to entertain. And when norms and anomalies can be recorded and analyzed not at the institutional level…but at the level of the individual transaction…people will CONSIDER outside opinions less out of fear of being flagged… and it creates an environment where people will be less skilled at critical thinking and using REASON to determine what the best OPTION is. Which remember…was the SECOND thing you’d want to limit… if you wanted to lock people inside of a digital prison.It’s been said that in the west we will slowly, VOLUNTARILY hand our rights over TO the people that control these machine algorithms…and that it will be DONE in the name of two things: convenience and security. It will be done in the name of getting a roast beef sandwich delivered |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-31|to you five minutes faster and in the name of sterilizing the world of any DANGER to anyone anywhere, some kind of utopia. But when you sacrifice options in the name of convenience and security…you also LIMIT your field of view. You run the risk of only SEEINg the options that an algorithm is optimized to give you, whatever THAT entails. I mean we are ALREADY living in a world where a totally open minded person that hears about something happening in the news… that WANTS to hear the intelligent arguments on the other side of the issue…they can have a VERY HARD TIME even FINDING anything other than the STRAWMAN version of the other side that THEIR side of the algorithm is roasting. See that’s the thing about the DIGITAL VERSION of this Panopticon in particular. If you’re a prisoner inside of a cell right now…then obviously the cell isn’t made of concrete and iron bars, it’s a digital echochamber created by algorithms. And the WARDEN of the prison in the center tower of the panopticon…the threat is NOT JUST that they could be watching you at any moment…The asymmetry in knowledge is MORE than in Bentham’s panopticon because you don’t |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-32|know ANYTHING about the people who are watching…but they potentially know EVERYTHING about you down to the most granular detail…and, they can predict and guide your behavior in ways that YOU don’t have the capacity to resist. You can’t resist it…because the WARDEN of the prison in this MODERN VERSION of the panopticon…is ALSO… the ACTIVITIES director of the prison in a way. They control every idea you have access to and every SOLUTION that you can possibly think of…they limit your ability to think critically and choose better or worse options…and when it comes to the WILL…the actual EXECUTION side of making a free choice…instead of like in EARLIER designs of a prison where they keep people in low-stimulation, monotonous boredom all day…THIS prison director keeps people HYPER-STIMULATED. Dialing in, fine tuning EXACTLY the media, the video games, the drama that keeps you scrolling and distracted. Keeping you CONSTANTLY in a state of anesthesia…too numb to ever feel the pain of BEING in a prison, pain that may OTHERWISE cause you to CHANGE something about your situation. I mean Nietzsche talked about the plight of someone living in modernity and predicted that after the death of God people would STILL HAVE |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-33|this PROPENSITY to ATTACH themselves to an ideology… and that what he predicts is that that ideology will be POLITICAL in nature. But Nietzsche could never imagine during HIS time…the option that exists for someone today’s world…to essentially choose to be functionally on drugs for every second of their day. NEVER feeling bad about it. How many PRISON riots would break out if it was legal to drug the prisoners to SLEEP every day of their lives? And with generative AI being able to PRODUCE this prison instantly and at zero cost…and with people being more legible than ever before to companies and governments around the world. This is the development… and near PERFECTION of the Panopticon as a method of social control. But that said I’m done STEELMANNING that whole side of it. AS we DO on this show let’s SLOW DOWN… and do an inventory of the different DIMENSIONS of this conversation that could exist. First of all…someone could say YES we DO live at the mercy of these ALGORITHMS to an extent…but how all encompassing are they REALLY… to someone’s WHOLE REALITY that they’re living in. I mean sure…if someone’s a TOTAL PASSENGER to everything that’s going on in |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-34|the world around them…maybe you CAN effectively keep them locked in an echo chamber for their entire life. But remember like we started the episode with…we’re trying to live the EXAMINED life here…we ARE paying attention…and if there’s any TRUTH to this… maybe there’s ways that people can RESIST this sort of thing…from INSIDE of the Panopticon. Also, it ABSOLUTELY needs to be said that there are people out there that wouldn’t necessarily buy into the doom and gloom of all this. There’s people that say that increased security…is an undeniably GOOD thing. They might say look…ALL the stuff you just described there…sure you can call it a prison or a panopticon if you want…but OTHER people might just call it…a SAFER society. On the corporate side you’re just talking about people getting better at their job of showing me what I might possibly want. It’s MY decision to choose to buy it or to not explore OTHER options. And at with the GOVERNMENT side of this…what you’re ULTIMATELY talking about is a group of highly skilled people whose ENTIRE JOB everyday is to watch your BACK in a more sophisticated, effective way. What’s wrong with that? You know who ELSE used |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-35|to watch my back? My mom. You gonna attack her? That poor woman’s been through enough already. There’s a PERSPECTIVE some people have: of well I’m not doing anything wrong. What do I care if some machine knows everything about me? What do I have to hide? And the machine GATHERING that information…it’s GATHERING information on people that could potentially HURT me or my family. Maybe this is just the next EVOLUTION of what a society is!Next episode we’re gonna talk about a lot. We’re gonna talk more about surveillance. We’re gonna talk about the age old philosophical relationship between freedom and security, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill…we’ll talk about some of the most important voices on either side of that debate on whether a surveillance state is a good thing for a society. Then I want to talk about some tactics for how to deal with LIVING in a world that FEELS like a Panopticon sometimes. How would someone resist AGAINST this stuff if they wanted to?And look the good news for us is that BY THIS POINT… there have been a LOT of philosophers throughout history who have spent ACTUAL time in prison and wrote about how to deal |2023-11-28T20:17:44.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr|186|Episode #186 - Are we heading for a digital prison?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-0|  So to start out the podcast today… I want you to try to imagine a hypothetical person whose living in an agrarian society in western europe, RIGHT before the Industrial Revolution starts to take off. Imagine someone whose a peasant farmer, DEEPLY religious, someone who has children and a family…in other words imagine someone who has NO WAY of KNOWING in terms of the industrial revolution…ANYTHING that’s about to HAPPEN to their world. Now for the SAKE of the example: let’s pretend this person and their family had access to BOOKS every now and again. And I fully realize most peasant farmers wouldn’t be able to READ back then…bear with me its supposed to be a ridiculous example. But let’s pretend this person had ACCESS to books…and let’s say that this person got their hot little hands on a NEW BOOK that just came out…and that the book was something like a dystopian futuristic sci-fi novel…instead of the book being called 1984…let’s pretend this one’s called 2024. And as this person’s reading it the book paints a VIVID picture, of a FUTURE world, that’s controlled by machines. Like ANY good sci-fi novel everything starts OUT very innocently. Machines are seen |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-1|as this AMAZING technology that’s gonna make the lives of people better. Scientific rationality, applied to economics, is going to make things POSSIBLE for people that have never existed before. A MONTAGE begins in the book telling the story over the decades. People are moving from farm work to working WITH these machines on the assembly lines of the factory. People are becoming consumers of the things that are being mass produced by these machines.It’s all very FUN to IMAGINE for someone living in the 1700’s. Until eventually people in the book start feeling the cultural effects of this massive change…they start to feel the alienation. OH! Now the book goes on to talk about these philosophers that come along, WEIRD names. Nietzsche and Adorno and Weber…they start to talking about this new feeling of MALAISE that starts to OVERTAKE the people living in these societies. Fast forward to the beginning of the 2020’s and this book is telling a story about how the world has TRANSFORMED into something…where these machines are NOT just economically entrenched…they have NOW managed to take control of the PSYCHOLOGY of the population. And again this is a sci-fi novel so grain of salt here but IN |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-2|this book… the LIFE of the average person is spent consuming MEDIA CHOSEN for them by machine algorithms. Many of these people are addicted to this media in some capacity. Many of them suffer in their mental health because they spend their days being fed content that is optimized to get them upset and commenting on it. People doomscroll in this book. People get trapped in media echo chambers. Free speech and censorship become pressing issues in this society in the face of exactly HOW these machines are divvying out content. And then in the book right towards the end…there’s a new invention that comes out…its a new VERSION of these machines people are calling it generative AI…and then our peasant friend has to slam the book shut and stop reading cause their MOM walks in the room and starts screaming at them…she says “are YOU wasting your time reading that science fiction NONSENSE again? Go milk the cows…go pickle some stuff for the winter…” I don’t know what a mom would say to a kid back then. Point is: imagine she tells her kid to stop worrying about this fantasy world so much and to go out there and get |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-3|serious about life. If you just READ the headlines of the major newspapers in today’s world…they will tell you that we are on the VERGE…of an artificial intelligence revolution. It’s not uncommon to HEAR people start to COMPARE this revolution… to the INDUSTRIAL revolution in terms of its potential impact on people’s lives. And what people are talking about when they SAY these sorts of things… is NOT AGI like we covered LAST episode, this ISN’T about ROBOTS taking over the world. These people are SIMPLY talking about Artificial Intelligence…AS it exists right NOW. They say RIGHT NOW…THIS technology PUTS us on the VERGE of a new technological revolution. But a skeptical person could say back to all that: how is anybody… really thinking that way? I mean have these people WRITING these articles even USED this technology? Look I GET it if you’re writing an article and you wanna generate some excitement, FINE…but what EXACTLY is it that you think this technology is gonna disrupt right now? I’ve TALKED to this ChatGPT asked it to write something…I mean this thing is hallucinating… like it’s on a giant hammer and sickle float at burning man. This thing will write a bedtime story |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-4|for a six year old. It’ll write a thank you letter to grandma for sending you five dollars and a birthday card. What do these people think? This is gonna disrupt the bedtime story industry? How is this is ANY way… comparable, to the industrial revolution?And I think most OPTIMISTIC people on the other side of the argument would say you’re RIGHT this IS… nothing LIKE the industrial revolution…because AI has the ability to change things… at a FAR GREATER level than the industrial revolution, EVER did. And to START to explain WHY…they may start with a little historical context on the state of AI right now…a story that begins… in the year 2017. See because before 2017…artificial intelligence research was done DIFFERENTLY than it is today. Back then there were many different, fragmented compartments…that all tried to IMPROVE their AI research from WITHIN their particular field. What you had was ONE group of brilliant people working on image recognition…ANOTHER group of smart people working on conversational AI…ANOTHER group maybe working on MUSIC related AI…and IF you were someone at the top levels of ANY ONE of these particular groups…you wouldn’t be able to hang in discussions at the very top levels of |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-5|any of these  OTHER groups. Everybody was more or less doing their own thing. But then in 2017 there was the emergence of something called a transformer. Transformer is the T in the name ChatGPT by the way. And the USE of transformers as the engine of AI…coupled with a change in strategy that massively consolidated how natural language processing tasks were approached…ALLOWED for these formerly compartmentalized fields to unify their efforts towards the development in AI in a way that was completely unprecedented. See if BEFORE 2017 someone in image recognition came up with a breakthrough…that was generally JUST an advancement in image recognition. But AFTER 2017, in the fields using these transformers, which are almost ALL the ones you’ve heard about in the news lately…a breakthrough in ONE compartment of AI… becomes a breakthrough in EVERY compartment of AI. This is why SINCE 2017 improvement in Artificial Intelligence has skyrocketed. This is why the amount of money going in to RESEARCH this stuff has skyrocketed. Which brings me back to the person SKEPTICAL of the technology and what it can possibly revolutionize as of now. The skeptic’s OBVIOUSLY not saying that technology’s incapable of revolutionizing the world at all…just, please SHOW ME the |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-6|evidence, of this AI disrupting anything and I’ll be on board with you! In fact: it seems BOTH sides can agree… that the level of REVOLUTION this technology is capable of directly corresponds to its capabilities. And that AS these capabilities improve and AS PEOPLE get better and better at USING the technology…the more possible AREAS of human life we may start to see this tech bleed into. The more TASKS these things are capable of replicating 1:1 that a human BEING is currently doing…the more impact we may see it have on REPLACING human beings. NONE of this seems too controversial to say on either side…the SKEPTIC would just say that the burden of PROOF is on the person claiming these things can REPLACE human beings. So get to work. Well the optimistic person could say back look, first things first these artificial intelligences, whatever they are…they’re NOT just writing bedtime stories and thank you cards to grandma. Also the APPLICATION of this technology is NOT JUST creative either, you’re thinking too narrowly. There are economists who say… JUST as the technology exists right NOW…that it has implications on 300 million jobs around the world. And when you TAKE that figure |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-7|and you consider the rapid level of change that’s gone on since the move to transformers…the burden of proof is on me? No the burden of proof is on YOU to explain why you DON’T think this tech will continue to improve and change more and more about the world!  Now…most skeptics don’t GO that far. Most of them acknowledge that the technology’s improving but they ask…how is this any different than any OTHER technology that’s come out in the past? People have literally said this about EVERYTHING. EVERY new exciting technology that has some buzz around it is gonna CHANGE the world. Oh my god. But what ALWAYS happens is EVENTUALLY…it becomes integrated into people’s lives, it becomes a subtle part of the landscape, and then the people hyping it up… that can’t seem to FUNCTION if they’re not hyping up SOMETHING…those people just move onto the NEXT technology and forget all about it. I mean JUST in the last five years its been web 3.0 and then its crypto and then its nfts…can’t these people just RELAX on this stuff for two seconds? But IS Artificial Intelligence… DIFFERENT? Well the ONLY way we’re gonna find out is if we TRY to |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-8|look at it in as UNBIASED a way as we possibly can. WITH the express intent to be able to look at it in a totally BIASED way after we’re DONE. But just start out… try as HARD as you can right now to not bring in ANY connotations about what Artificial Intelligence IS. You EITHER run the risk of bringing in what AI USED to be before 2017. That NPC in a video game running into a box for 20 minutes. OR you run the risk of bringing in AI religious fantasies from people larping in the woods with their friends.  No. Let’s TRY at first to see it as GENERALLY as we possibly can, as SIMPLY… a technology. Let’s examine it by considering the different AFFORDANCES that it brings about. What does AI allow people to do now that they couldn’t do before? And what areas of life does it prevent or make obsolete?Well this is EXACTLY what the thinkers Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris have been trying to do with AI…for YEARS now. And when considering this most recent ADVANCEMENT in the capabilities of AI…they give three criteria you gotta consider if you’re looking at ANY piece of disruptive |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-9|technology…They say the FIRST thing you have to acknowledge about a tech is one…that whenever you create a new technology… you bring about a new class of responsibilities. Two…they say IF that technology that’s being introduced confers power… then a race will begin to try to possess that power. And three…if there is no coordination by the people that are racing for it…that race will usually end in tragedy. They say we’ve ALREADY seen a VERSION of this… when it comes to our relationship to AI in an earlier form. To Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris…first CONTACT with artificial intelligence was the way that it affected us through social media. See AI…up until very recently… was just known as RANKING artificial intelligence. Meaning that it was PEOPLE that produced the content…PEOPLE made the articles, videos, social media posts…and then the AI… would SIFT THROUGH that MOUNTAIN of content… and then RANK it in some sort of way. Think of google taking 10 million results and giving you the most relevant ones to YOU in three seconds. Think of your Facebook feed ranking and delivering the most LIKELY piece of content to keep you scrolling and clicking. THIS has been the TYPE of artificial |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-10|intelligence that we’ve all become FAMILIAR with.And this RANKING, FORM of Artificial Intelligence…COMPLETELY changed people’s lives. In many ways we’re STILL figuring out how to deal with all the impacts that it had. Think of the dystopian future laid out in the hypothetical sci-fi novel. Addiction, echo chambers, polarization, doom scrolling, censorship…simply by RANKING and DISTRIBUTING content that people were ALREADY making…Artificial Intelligence as it existed at the time was capable of messing with people’s mental health, massively influencing their worldview and undermining MAJOR PIECES of the democratic system in the process. As Yuval Harari pointed out recently: In the united states… in what some may see as one of the most advanced information delivery machines in the world…simply with AI deciding which content people get to see over others optimizing for ENGAGEMENT…think of all that happened: we can't agree on who won the last election, we can’t agree on whether or not climate change is real, whether vaccines prevent illness...again we’re not talking about what the TRUTH is here…we’re talking about the level of disagreement about basic facts that the current way of doing things has managed to make POSSIBLE. The reality is…you ALREADY live in a world where you can be |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-11|sitting on a bus NEXT to someone…and they are effectively living in an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT universe than you are…and THAT is made possible SIMPLY by having this more BASIC form of artificial intelligence ranking human created content…and now comes the very RECENT innovation in the field of AI…of what’s called GENERATIVE AI. This is a leap forward. And there’s a lot of people out there who are saying that THIS leap forward… is different than previous ones. Lot of people predicting that if we’re talking about THIS version of AI and WHATEVER lies BEYOND this…people in the future will look back on THIS TIME in history and think of there being a world BEFORE generative AI…and a world AFTER it. So what IS generative AI? Well it’s right there in the name really… at its core… generative AI is about getting trained on masses of data…learning a probability distribution…and then GENERATING new content that’s SIMILAR to the content it was trained on. If it’s ChatGPT it will produce similar text. If it’s StableDiffusion or Midjourney it will produce similar images. But it’s important to note that it really isn't limited to artistic stuff; with an API, this thing can GENERATE… a shopping |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-12|list for you. It can GENERATE… a list of the most relevant pieces of information from 100 different emails. The limits of the possibilities are truly UNKNOWN. And the BIG thing to take away from this is that…the WHOLE POINT of this leap FORWARD in the technology…is that AI can GENERATE things now, not just RANK them like in a search engine. So then you gotta ask: IF someone can GENERATE things for next to ZERO cost and way faster and more efficiently than a PERSON could EVER hope to do…the question becomes NOT if there’s anything this can be a 1:1 replacement for that takes 100% of a human brain to accomplish. In other words this thing DOESN’T need to be able to write the new works of Shakespeare…in order to BE DISRUPTIVE to the world as it IS… this thing ONLY needs to be able to do repetitive, data intensive things that it takes… 10% of a person’s brain to do…but this thing does them at zero cost with no wait time. Think of how word processing used to be. When your GRANDPARENTS hit the workforce…being able to use the microsoft Office suite was not a required skill for being hired. |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-13|But by the time they retired, along the way they needed to BECOME LITERATE in microsoft word. The technology DISRUPTED…HOW they were doing their job. If when Microsoft Word came around and everyone in the office had to learn to use it…if your grandpa went into his bosses office and was like no, I’m not doin’ it. I don’t NEED microsoft word…I’m the FASTEST WRITER on planet earth! I’ll work twice as HARD as everyone else! I’ll stay late! Please. The dude would get fired. No matter HOW FAST of a writer you are just copy and pasting, formatting, the sharing of files…there was a world of word processing BEFORE digital computers and AFTER digital computers. Even a MEDIOCRE newspaper delivery person in a car can deliver newspapers five times faster than someone on a bike. In other words: the technology RAISED the former STANDARD for what the bare minimum was in terms of efficiency. And everybody ELSE… had to play catch up or get left behind. Now I don’t want to focus TOO much on the economic side of this here…fact is there is a LOT MORE to talk about with the impact of AI that doesn’t have to do with |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-14|people’s jobs…but the ECONOMIC side of this INSsomething that a LOT of the optimistic people in the conversation are talking about. And people like Emad Motasque, CEO of Stability AI has said that while there are all these people who may be worried about AI replacing human beings in the workforce…that’s not necessarily TRUE in the short term. He says AI won't replace people…PEOPLE with AI will replace people. Fellow optimist might say take what was just said about microsoft word…and apply this SAME thing that happened to the inefficiency of how word processing used to be…and apply that to EVERY, SINGLE piece of your career where you do ANYTHING repetitive, data-intensive or time consuming. Think of your job right now, whatever it is. Real question they would ask: what percentage of your time at work is NOT you utilizing your full expert capacity on what you’re good at…but is instead dealing with rudimentary, simple, time consuming tasks that could be automated if AI improved even a little? How much of your job could be made more efficient JUST at where the technology is now? How much MORE effective of a person could you become if you knew how to USE that |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-15|technology?Now a LOT of people don’t work jobs that are ON a computer…these people would say: doesn’t mean they can’t optimize certain ASPECTS of their job with AI…and… if THEY don’t…their employer WILL… and eventually AI literacy will be mandatory like Microsoft Office literacy. See this OPTIMISTIC perspective… just NEEDS to be said at SOME point in this episode…there are voices in this conversation that’s going on about generative AI…that say in a very motivational sort of way… that we’re living in amazing times man. You have the opportunity to LEARN about this technology early on and then being at a HUGE advantage over other people around you as you watch this stuff restructure what life IS for a human being. That there’s a relative HANDFUL of people even THINKING about AI right now…and these people think this is one of those areas that you could TRULY, in the next year or two of learning about this stuff, you could become somebody PART of the decision making process of how to roll this stuff out… because you’d genuinely be one of the most educated people on it in the world. Just go to AI douchebag.com and get their five pillars of success. And |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-16|we’re gonna talk about the good effects this could potentially have on society…we’re gonna talk about the bad. I just want to say again before we get into this…MY job is to give you the different takes…YOUR job is to figure out where you LAND on all this. Just seems tempting for people to fall into either the contrarian echochamber camp where they’re endlessly skeptical about AI…OR into the fanatic religious person committed to the computational theory of mind. Just make sure AS we talk about the good AND the bad here…you try to decide what you think is based in reality…and when these people start Larping. Because there’s definitely some larping going on. And I wanna let em larp. It’s fun. But I don’t want you to waste YOUR time with too much of that…here’s some applications for the GOOD it can do in the world that seem relatively reasonable:Really, all you gotta do is picture ANY area of society… where one person’s expertise isn’t scalable to thousands of people…where then there’s bottlenecks that are created in terms of ACCESS to those services. Generative AI people say… can MASSIVELY HELP with those sorts of things. So the obvious low hanging fruit |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-17|here is going to be healthcare and education. The average doctor visit takes people two hours of time between scheduling, waiting in line, transportation. And that is ONLY because people are navigating a SYSTEM…where there’s a small number of qualified doctors… who need to be able to help EVERYBODY. But MOST of the sessions where these doctors are SEEING people…doctor’s not using 100% of their creative expertise…depending on the type of doctor… they’re looking at a pimple and telling someone its a pimple and not skin cancer. They’re doing routine followups…there are equivalents in the world of medicine of busy work. But imagine a world…where you could FEED an AI your entire medical history on your phone, everything that goes into a chart. And then imagine… IN BETWEEN episodes of your favorite TV show…you could be sitting on your couch, send it a picture of your pimple, which the AI then compares to billions of OTHER pimples it has in its pimple database, and it could DIAGNOSE that you have a pimple…WITHOUT taking up a spot at the hospital. WITHOUT any feelings of embarrassment that often stop people from seeking out information. Imagine the COUNTLESS potential applications in healthcare when it comes to |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-18|diagnostics, sifting through mountains of data, and imagine this service being provided…basically for free to people. This is something that an optimist in this conversation might say. Think of how education could change. Think of JUST the applications in the area of TUTORING… when it comes to lower income kids that don’t have ACCESS to great teachers or test prep. This AI…this thing doesn’t have to be teaching the highest levels of quantum mechanics…it’s just teaching basic academics. So while usually a teacher’s time has to be fragmented between students…it’s not SCALABLE…larger and larger class sizes and then there’s that one kid in the corner that’s STRUGGLING that NEEDS the extra help...imagine one of these algorithms learning EVERYTHING about that kid. And then GENERATING, in the generative AI sense…GENERATING LESSONS for that kid specifically tailored to them. Knowing how they learn, knowing their biases, the way they get distracted, knowing what things are easy for them what things are more difficult. Again an optimist would say imagine that being available to everybody at NEXT to zero cost. What might the world start to LOOK like? LOTS of people right now that talk about this being applied to WEATHER predictions, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes. When |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-19|it comes to traffic predictions, I mean imagine the increased levels of efficiency if you could HAVE in a city if you HAD a person directing traffic at EVERY STREETLIGHT. Yeah, that’d be great…we just can’t DO it right now because it’s not scalable. But what if we COULD? On that SAME note people say how about farming? It’s not currently SCALABLE… for a farmer to go out into the fields like a scarecrow and STARE at every square foot of their crops. Imagine how this might change the world of irrigation and waste. Imagine how it maybe changes the entire way we TALK about the environment and what’s acceptable in terms of how those resources are USED. Lots of people talking about how much more efficient this makes DRUG discovery.. Just a few months ago with this technology: THOUSANDS of years it would’ve took people in a lab doing protein folding…took AI only a couple weeks, THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I’ll save you some time here…virtually ANY area of society where there’s one of these bottlenecks when it comes to the scalability of someone’s time, where the thing they’re doing DOESN’T take all of their expertise…generative AI is not far away from |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-20|automating it.And this extends to your personal life as well. As Yuval Harari asks: why would anyone sit around for an hour and read the newspaper… when they can just ask an oracle what the relevant stuff is that’s going on in the world? Think of how this improves the life of someone whose LONELY…someone who just wants something to have a conversation with. Think of how this helps senior citizens. Think of how this changes intimacy. Point is: there’s an optimistic way to be LOOKING at all of this. That this technology could fundamentally CHANGE the entire world. It could make the human race SO much more efficient… and intelligence SO SCALABLE for the average person…that it creates an economic abundance where NOBODY has to go without ANYTHING anymore. And in THAT world these optimistic people say…what it is to be a HUMAN BEING… would fundamentally change…it would go from having a mindset constantly focused on how do I acquire the means of survival today to provide for my family…to more like: what do I WANT to do with my life? Which NO DOUBT would create NEW problems for people the utopian larping starts to get pretty real here…ALL OF THIS stuff |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-21|needs to be SAID…okay…but it should ALSO be said…that basically EVERY one of these things we just talked about that the technology could be used for to produce something GOOD…in some OTHER sector, some OTHER application…the SAME capabilities could be used EQUALLY EFFECTIVELY…in a predatory way. And then…imagine the impacts of that being in hands of virtually EVERYONE…for free. For example:The personalized education we just talked about. How what if the AI could know EVERYTHING about you and personalize lessons just for you. WOW! Well the FLIP side of that is: imagine that an AI could know everything about you…and then USES all that information… to sell you stuff. I mean if you think it’s weird NOW when an algorithm knows what to recommend for you to buy …imagine a world where these things know every interest that you have, every bias that you have, every FEAR that you have. And not just in sales, imagine something optimized… to PERSONALLY, take advantage of your psychology in ANY way that it can, and something that can generate content that then REINFORCES that story its telling you. Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris talk about a LOT of things that could go wrong if we’re not |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-22|careful about this generative AI…but one of the scariest possibilities they talk about… is that when you consider the capabilities of this technology…When you consider fake news stories, when you consider deep fake videos, when you consider bots that are able to take over comment sections and potentially influence elections…the BIG FEAR…. is that people will go from where they are now… where they have a HARD TIME being able to trust sources…to not being able to trust sources, at all. In fact it all gets pretty philosophical FAST in a world like that…because how does ANYBODY…know whether they can trust ANYTHING about the state of the world that they’re receiving through content? How can ANYBODY know whether they’re EVER TALKING to a real person?HATE to bring up OLD people on this episode again but everybody knows what its like to have a relative or someone you know show you a video of something CRAZY they saw the other day…and to ANYONE with BASIC critical thinking that’s LIVED on the INTERNET for most of their life…to you it’s OBVIOUS what they’re looking at is CGI. To you this is CGI on the level of Star Wars Phantom Menace in 2001…but to |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-23|THEM…they can’t tell the difference they think they’re living in a world where we just interviewed an alien on the news last week. What I’m saying is: we all can SEE how HELPLESS you would BE… if you truly couldn’t tell the difference BETWEEN reality and a synthesized video. And it doesn’t take much to imagine a world where this technology improves enough where even YOU can’t tell the difference either. And short of giving up…short of just accepting you can’t know anything about the world around you that isn’t immediately happening to you…short of US creating COUNTER TECHNOLOGY…what could you DO… in a world where AI can generate content that manipulates your attention, and then creates a false reality that imprisons you? It’s ALREADY DOING it to a lot of people JUST USING algorithms and their political bias. You know it just REMINDS you of Guy Debord and the Society of the Spectacle and how he said all the way back in the 1960’s… that reality is NO LONGER something that people PARTICIPATE in…you know for THOUSANDS of YEARS what was RELEVANT to you as a person was what was going on right around you that you could see…but NOW we live |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-24|in a world where your social ROLE is NOT to PARTICIPATE in reality anymore…but just to contemplate the spectacle that’s GIVEN to you. With generative AI in the mix…this would be that SPECTACLE…TAKEN to an exponentially GREATER level. And THINK of the implications this could have on democratic systems in particular. The WHOLE THING that MAKES modern democracies work… is that we can rely on there being free citizens, educating themselves, having real discussions with each other, coming to a progressively more accurate understanding of the general will of the people. But in a world where people are being curated every piece of information they consume, and they CAN’T TRUST anything that they read and they can’t even know if the person they’re talking to online is a real person…or just some persuasion bot deployed by an ideology that progressively gets to know you and convinces you to join their side…in THAT world…how does democracy even continue? How do democratic systems built around checks and balances and SLOW MOVING PROGRESS to safeguard against tyranny…how do these kinds of systems regulate something like generative AI that potentially CHANGES faster than you can regulate it? There’s a great metaphor I heard a long time ago…of all people |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-25|by Dan Carlin the history podcaster shoutout to the GOAT. But he compares the state of modern democratic systems like the United States to a couple that buys a house… and that one weekend, they notice there’s some mold growing on the outside of the house. Now they have a problem to solve. They have mold. So they start talking about different options to be able to solve it. But the two of them can’t AGREE on a solution right away… so they put it off until next week. And then the next week. The two parties…as it were in this example… keep arguing about it for years…HEATED ARGUMENTS for DECADES…GREAT ideas on both sides. But they eventually get to a place where now the mold they were arguing about originally has gotten WORSE; now it’s SPREAD into the foundation of the house. Now what ORIGINALLY was a problem that could’ve been solved in a weekend…now this is something that is gonna require a radical change to be able to fix. One of the questions he asks is: how are these modern democracies that are designed to change slowly to PREVENT radical groups from overtaking them…how are they supposed to FIX |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-26|problems that are systemic? And now how can something that is THIS slow moving ever work EFFICIENTLY enough to keep up with something that IMPROVES as efficiently as generative AI?  Makes you wonder if democracy needs to be reoriented to be able to DEAL with the pace of change. Makes you wonder if people will lose faith and move more in the direction of electing powerful people… that can IMPLEMENT sweeping change and regulations. Just something to keep your eye on. Another thing that needs to be mentioned on the potential negative side of this…is that the PEOPLE on the OPTIMISTIC side…were VERY hopeful about the possibility of this IMPROVING people’s efficiency and bringing economic abundance that CHANGES what it is to be a human. But if we’re being realistic…isn’t it ALSO possible… that this just ELIMINATES jobs? I mean if one person can now do the work of three people by automating basic stuff with AI…what’s MORE LIKELY? Are companies just gonna get three times as much work done? Or are they gonna fire two thirds of their workforce and have 10 people do the work of 30? See that’s the thing about this technology that takes any task it’s capable of disrupting |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-27|and then amplifies it good OR bad…DOES this just take the flaws that are ALREADY PRESENT in the existing system… and amplify THOSE? Does this technology lead to a tech-driven resource abundant utopia…or does it just make the rich richer… and the poor poorer? Do the super rich just accept a super high tax rate to be able to fund a universal basic income? Will that even FIX the problem…There’s plenty more BAD I could talk about here. Training data with copyright infringement, plagiarism. Algorithmic bias ALONE could be an entire EPISODE in how AI is not really a technology at all but more of a social phenomenon when you consider how many people are affected by this stuff. Kate Crawford’s work is pretty illuminating on the subject if you’re looking for something to read. But I don’t PERSONALLY want to speculate about all the bad for hours here because I think you get the point. As Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris say at the Center for Humane Technology we have a WINDOW here… where the ground rules for how this generative AI is going to be rolled out have not yet been established. They say we HAVE to do something DIFFERENT |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-28|than we did with our first CONTACT with AI back in the days SOLELY of ranking on social media. And CONSIDER the fact… that AS we’re trying to figure out how to HANDLE all this… there are a handful of CEOs in the tech industry… that are essentially deciding the fate for all of humanity. THAT has to change. Even the CEOs say it has to change. And if you care at all and you want to find out more check out the Center for Humane Technology on the internet or in your yellow pages. But to return back to our agrarian friend at the beginning of the episode…reading a SCI-FI novel about the coming industrial revolution and the age of machines…as we said at the beginning there is NO WAY someone could’ve known back then how ALIEN life was going to look like for someone living just two generations from them in the future. And it’s important to document both the benefits AND the CHALLENGES people faced living in the world after the industrial revolution, that CHANGED what it meant to be a human being in the western world. And IF we’re on the verge of a revolution similar to that of |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-29|the THIRD industrial revolution…the world economic forum says that this AI business is just part of what they’re calling the FOURTH industrial revolution…if we’re on the verge of that…then as someone living through it… whose a fan of philosophy and who THINKS about large scale historical trends in thinking… you find yourself… in a pretty unique position here. You have the ability to PREPARE yourself for something like this. Most people aren’t even THINKING about this stuff…most people don’t have the LUXURY to…most people are just doing their best working hard trying to earn their paycheck and spend some time with their family. When a new AI feature shows up on an app in their phone…they just USE it. They don’t think what does this mean for the future of life on planet earth. All of us listening to this right now…are TRULY insufferable, together…but it COMES with some benefits to be insufferable sometimes, if you think about it…as someone INTO PHILOSOPHY like this…you are IN a place where you can SEE the fall of Alexander the Great’s empire…BEFORE it actually happens. You know a LOT of people have been talking about STOICISM lately…well Stoicism was a school of philosophy that emerged after |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-30|the death of Alexander the Great. He dies…his empire is broken up into four GIANT pieces, those pieces get even MORE complicated…and the LIFE of someone in the Mediterranean Sea region at the time becomes one of nearly CONSTANT change. So what EMERGES… are schools of thought that try to DEAL with that constant change…for STOICISM specifically with your inability to control anything other than your RESPONSE to things.Point is: how do you deal with a world that is changing so fast you can never find your footing in it? How do you ever feel a strong sense of who you are? If generative AI continues to improve, and then continues to disrupt and replace the skills of human beings…people are going to be living in a world where they live long enough to WITNESS their own obsolescence. Skills that people spent tens of thousands of hours developing, mastering…things that make up a large part of their identity and how they fit INTO The world…people will live long enough to see an AI able to do it in under three seconds. You wanna talk about a malaise that affected people after the industrial revolution. You wanna talk about philosophers like Nietzsche |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p-31|having the philosophical context to see it coming. Imagine the malaise for people in this NEW world that may be created…and YOU are the philosopher that decides to be insufferable and EDUCATE yourself on this stuff…you’re the one that can see it coming. It already happens to OLD people in the world, god what’s it with OLD people this episode. Old people will often see their skillsets become obsolete because of new technologies or just the world changing…but they’ve often worked for their entire career and can retire and ride off into the sunset. What if you witness your own obsolescence…in your mid 20’s? What if someone signs up for a four year degree, and by the time their done getting it the entire FIELD has been replaced by AI? That is going to happen to someone if this stuff keeps improving. The only question is on the other SIDE of that…will we be living in an economic utopia? A Panopticon? Somewhere in the middle? Idk but what I DO know is that philosophy can help people see it coming…we’re not LIKE the peasant farmers that lived before the industrial revolution. Just like the technology we’re facing…WE are something different. Thank you |2023-11-28T20:16:36.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-papmr-kaj7p|185|Episode #185 - Should we prepare for an AI revolution?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-0|  So I want to start out the podcast  today with a question that we’ll return back to at the end of the episode. You know you talk to some people about technology in todays world…something goes wrong with a technology something horrible happens…and you ask people what they think about it and they say you know, technology ITSELF is not bad. Technology… is a tool. It’s neutral. Whether it’s good or bad; that just depends on how someone’s using it. And OUR job… as a people…ALL WE CAN DO… is to try to incentivize the GOOD actors in the world and DETER the behavior of the bad. We’ve ALL heard people SAY this kinda stuff before but the question is: SHOULD we really be THINKING about it that way?SHOULD we be thinking of technology as this class of neutral things that can’t be judged as good or bad…or is it possible EACH piece of technology carries with it a type of latent morality just given the capabilities that it HAS to affect the society it’s a part of? You have to ask yourself: is TikTok a neutral piece of technology? Are nuclear weapons neutral? Do we have the LUXURY |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-1|anymore of THINKING about technology in this way?Hopefully these questions and me being awkwardly dramatic right now will make a LOT more sense by the END of the episode but for now… lets build a bit of a FOUNDATION for the discussion we’re having today. Last episode we talked about ChatGPT…and we got past what’s an initial intuition that someone might have whose just getting IN to these conversations about AI. That WHEN ChatGPT TALKS to me and it SOUNDS like it’s an intelligent person…that IT MUST…in IT’S processing unit…be DOING the SAME kinds of things that intelligent PEOPLE are doing in their BRAINS… when THEY have a conversation. Now CLEARLY that’s NOT what ChatGPT is DOING. But it should be SAID…the fact it’s not doing all of that…that DOESN’T make ChatGPT unintelligent…and it CERTAINLY doesn’t make large language models not…scary. There’s a type of person that comes to the defense of ChatGPT here…  a really, really SMART kind of person they say: “well, how do YOU know ChatGPT isn’t doing EXACTLY what we’re doing? Do you know for sure? Hmm? Maybe all we DO as people is just probabilistically interject”THAT’S not the best argument if you want to DEFEND ChatGPT…you know to |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-2|try to make a case for why it’s ACTUALLY DOING what people are doing…no, the BETTER argument… is to say that WHAT MAKES ChatGPT scary…is that it doesn’t HAVE to be doing what a human being is doing…because we’re NOT, actually, aiming for reproducing a human intelligence, at ALL necessarily. Let me explain what I mean. Two points we gotta talk about and then we’ll bring them together. The FIRST point is this: when John Searle last episode talks about syntax and semantics… and how the person INSIDE the Chinese Room can’t POSSIBLY understand Chinese from just sitting there in a room manipulating symbols. Someone could say BACK to that…and they’d be evoking the most COMMON response BACK to the chinese room argument called the systems response…they could say yeah… you’re right… the person in the room doesn’t understand a WORD of chinese…but neither does any SINGLE subsystem of my brain understand the language I’M using right now. The neurons that make UP my brain don’t understand language, the single PARTS of my brain don’t…but the whole SYSTEM…DOES. Could it be that the LEAP from syntax to semantics…goes on at the level of the entire SYSTEM instead?That’s the FIRST point, hold onto it for a |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-3|minute, here’s the second point:IF we’re making the case that we’re not actually AIMING for creating a human intelligence anyway…well then what sort of intelligence ARE we trying to create? Seems important to ask the question: what IS intelligence, more fundamentally? And what you quickly realize as you start trying to ANSWER that question is that… coming up with a rigid definition for intelligence… is about as fruitful as it was for Socrates when he was harassing people back in ancient Athens. Nobody EVER agrees on a definition in these conversations…but there ARE a couple important things to take from the people that have tried. One thing that CERTAINLY seems to be the case…VERY important… is that the definition of intelligence is CLEARLY NOT just: “whatever human beings are doing”. Meaning human intelligence is not the ONLY kind of intelligence. Intelligence is something more BROADLY definable than that. Intelligence exists in animals, it exists in complex systems in nature… and it’s not controversial to think that it MAY be able to exist in machines as well.So how DO we broadly define intelligence if we were going to try?And again there’s A LOT of people in these conversations that do their best to give |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-4|a definition…I HOPE people are satisfied enough with THIS one as a preliminary definition I just want to be able to have a conversation today. Is it TOO far off to say intelligence is the ability of something to understand, learn, solve problems, adapt to new situations, and generate outputs that successfully achieve its objectives. Hopefully that’s close enough to get started. Well under THAT definition… then something like ChatGPT is already intelligent. The question becomes just a matter of degree. And when philosophers and scientists that are in the business of building machines that are progressively more intelligent…when THEY talk about this stuff… they TYPICALLY divide intelligence into three broad categories: narrow intelligence, GENERAL intelligence and SUPER intelligence. Narrow intelligence is something like ChatGPT, or image recognition technology…or a chess computer. Look a chess computer can outperform EVERY HUMAN…it can beat the best players at chess in the world… if all it has to do is play CHESS against them. Which is to say: if it’s narrow intelligence is confined to a CLOSED system with a set of rules like the game of chess. That’s NARROW intelligence. But creating a GENERAL intelligence like we have…one that’s navigating the open world, setting goals, |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-5|learning, adapting…THAT’S something most computer scientists think is just entirely DIFFERENT. That its a WHOLE different LEVEL of intelligence…and a whole different architecture of how the information is processed. And NOW to bring these two points together: A person coming to the DEFENSE of ChatGPT here might say… that JUST because ChatGPT hasn’t achieved GENERAL INTELLIGENCE yet…doesn’t mean that it’s not a MAJOR step in that direction. This person might say it doesn’t take much to imagine this narrow intelligence of ChatGPT… that by the way is doing TONS of stuff it wasn’t even optimized to DO…imagine IT… linked together with 50-100 OTHER narrow intelligences, each performing different FUNCTIONS, all of them communicating with each other, within a larger SYSTEM. Could it be… that THAT is where general intelligence emerges?Consider the similarities here to the theories of consciousness that we’ve already talked about. To Daniel Dennetts multiple DRAFTS model in our consciousness is an illusion episode…where multiple, parallel processes, ALL communicating with each other, create the ILLUSION of our phenomenal consciousness. Point is: could it BE that our mind and our SYSTEM of GENERAL intelligence is made up of various subsystems… and that no ONE of those subsystems EVER understands EVERYTHING that the |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-6|whole BRAIN is doing, LIKE the person in the Chinese room…but that in aggregate…is it possible these things could work together to produce something…that’s capable of navigating the open world in a general intelligence sort of way?No matter WHAT side of this debate you’re on…at THIS point your ANSWER to that question HAS to be…that we just don’t KNOW. And on TOP of that CONSIDER the fact…that in order for general intelligence to be a thing…we don’t even NEED one of these machines to HAVE consciousness or a mind. All we NEED is general intelligence. So there’s people out there who will say oh, we got nothing to worry about with AI. Cause these things are still decades away from EVER being able to do what a human MIND is doing…and THOSE people are probably RIGHT. But HUMAN intelligence… is a straw target people say in these conversations…that’s not even what the people working in this area are AIMING for anyway.Where the MONEY is, the quadrillions of dollars its estimated, and where the scientific PRESTIGE and political POWER is in this field…is not in cracking HUMAN intelligence…but in solving GENERAL intelligence. Which… to say it another way: we’re not trying to create |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-7|a PERSON here, get THAT idea out of your head…we’re trying to create an entirely different SPECIES. And THAT’S WHAT MAKES…Artificial Intelligence IN it’s current form… a pretty scary thing. The people at the top of these conversations about the risk of AGI…these are NOT PEOPLE who typically are screaming from the rooftops…the ROBOTS are COMIN MAN! Come on down into my basement with me I got canned peaches we can live here forever!No, these people are usually very reasonable. What THEY’RE saying is…given the impoverished state of our understanding of how the mind or intelligence even operates…we DON’T KNOW, we WOULDN’T know how close or far away we ARE from a General Intelligence. Our PREDICTIONS certainly aren’t a good sign because we keep on being WRONG. And UNFORTUNATELY… it’s NOT good enough on this one to just wait it out…and see what happens…because on THIS one…the person on the AI risk side of things would say that if we DON’T have these conversations now and understand the unprecedented STAKES of the situation…we may not HAVE a world to be able to FIX this situation in as we go. There’s a lot of philosophers that have tried to paint a picture for people of |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-8|what it would be like to live in a world with super intelligent machines. And if you’re somebody SKEPTICAL of this whole possiblity, bear with me for a moment. As we DO on this show we’ll talk about the counter points but I just think it’s important to visualize what this world might feel like to someone who’s living in it. Helps to make this whole discussion… a little more REAL for people. But one philosopher who’s FOCUS on painting this picture in recent years, an absolutely brilliant communicator among other things: is Sam Harris. Now, Sam sets up this thought experiment… by asking people to accept what HE thinks are two very simple premises.The first premise…is that substrate independence is a reality…meaning that there’s nothing magical about the meat computer of the brain that ALLOWS for this general intelligence. That a general intelligence could be RUN on something like silicon mirroring a neural network. That’s the first premise. The SECOND premise…is SIMPLY that we just KEEP MAKING…incremental progress. As he says it doesn’t have to be Moore’s law…it JUST has to be consistent progress in the direction of a general intelligence…and EVENTUALLY he says…we will BE at HUMAN levels of |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-9|intelligence… and by necessity, far GREATER levels of intelligence. Super intelligence eventually. It’s easy to picture all the GOOD things about having a super intelligence on your side. Picture a world without disease, inequality, even death. It all sounds so wonderful. It’s also easy to picture  all the super intelligent ways this thing would be coming for your canned peaches if it wanted to.  So maybe the more interesting thing to do, what Sam Harris asks people to do…is just to imagine yourself in that initial place of ambiguity…try to imagine yourself standing in the presence… of one of these super intelligent beings. Try to picture it in your head right now. What do you picture? What does it look like? How do you feel?Well one thing to keep in mind as you’re FORMING that picture in your head… is that this thing…WHATEVER it looks like…would NOT be constrained by biology in the same way that you or I are. It doesn’t need to have two legs and two arms. Remember… this is NOT a person. This is an entirely different SPECIES that we’ve created. This thing could look like a fire hydrant. It could look like a floating orb if it |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-10|wanted to. It doesn’t even have to necessarily TAKE a physical form. But let’s say that it DID. And let’s say that it had EYES that are expressive of how its feeling in the same way a mammals eyes are expressive. How would this thing look at you…how does something look at a creature that’s THOUSANDS of times less intelligent than IT is? How does a general intelligence without biological restrictions, with cognitive horizons your brain can’t actually even BEGIN to comprehend, how does THAT thing look at you? Well, it wouldn’t look at you like a lion would look at you. Like a predator that wants to eat you. This thing doesn’t want to eat you. It wouldn’t be like looking.. into the eyes of a bear…when a bear looks at you, at least BLACK bears up here in the northwest…they DON’T usually look at you like they want to EAT you…a BEAR looks at you with eyes that are kind of curious, like they got nothing to worry about in the entire world…and they’re just kinda looking THROUGH you right now. You’re like a netflix show they’re mildly interested in. But when it comes to a superintelligence, it SEEMINGLY, wouldn’t even look |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-11|at you like that…given time to study you it would already KNOW almost everything about you. Maybe the CLOSEST comparison is that it might look at you… the same way WE look at something like a Honey Bee. Living in a hive. Quick question for you: do you think honey bees worry about racism going on in the public school system? I mean, why not? Why not? It’s an incredibly important moral issue that’s FACING us right now. Are honey bees just uncaring? No, obviously…a BEE… doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to CARE about stuff like that. What IT cares about is what’s going on in the world of its HIVE. And while these moral dimensions CLEARLY exist at OTHER levels of intelligence, for other TYPES of intelligent creatures…there is no amount of explanation that is going to bring a honey bee up to speed on why this is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Point is: WE HAVE TO ASSUME…that the moral dimensions of a superintelligence, would be similar in comparison to OUR level of intelligence. We have to assume that this thing would be progressively learning about its surroundings, progressively adapting, coming up with new goals…and that these goals |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-12|could be of a scope that are literally impossible for our brains to fathom. You know Sam Harris compared it at one point to the relationship between BIRDS and human beings. How if you were a bird…and you HAD the ability to THINK about your relationship to human beings…you are essentially living every day of your life just hoping that human beings don’t find something that they like MORE than the existence of birds. And that to a BIRD… our behavior has to be pretty confusing… sometimes we look at them. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we kill huge numbers of them for what to THEM must seem like ABSOLUTELY no reason at all. Picture you now are living alongside a BEING…. that is like THAT to you. Where you are looking at this thing…and you really are like a cat that is watching TV. It all looks very familiar to you…but you can’t possibly comprehend the true depth of what’s going on. The SIMPLE place for the brain to GO here is to say: well that’s TERRIFYING. I mean what if this thing decides one day it doesn’t like us and it just kills us all! Maybe I’ll be really NICE to it. You |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-13|know I’m kind of CHARMING when I want to be. Maybe if we’re all really NICE to this thing it’ll cure cancer for us and make new shows for us to watch! Why would this thing be MEAN to us if we never give it a REASON to be mean?But the MORE interesting thing to consider Sam Harris says… and this is an adaptation of an idea from the computer scientist Stuart Russell…but he says that an AI that is on the level of SUPER intelligence…wouldn’t even need to HAVE malicious intent towards humanity in order for it to be DANGEROUS to us. He says you know in the same way… you buy a plot of land and you build a house on it…and that AS you’re BUILDING that house… throughout the whole process you kill hundreds if not THOUSANDS of bugs…and it’s NOT because you have any evil feelings towards BUGS…you just don’t consider their existence…the goal you’re trying to accomplish is of a scope and a level of importance where the bugs you’re going to have to kill is not even something that crosses your mind. A superintelligence wouldn’t NEED a nefarious motive to be able to DO things that makes |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-14|it’s EXISTENCE dangerous to people. Now somebody could say back to all this wow…wow that’s a wonderful picture that you’ve painted there. A great FANTASY world where a superintelligence exists…but this stuff isn’t going on in the REAL world yet. And there’s a LOT of assumptions you have to MAKE to be able to GET to this point in the fantasy. This person might say it STARTS to almost FEEL… like you guys are LARPING over here. You guys have heard of larping right? Those dudes that go out into the woods in wizard costumes create a mythical world that they can fight in and shoot magic missles at each other. I’m SURE you’ve all seen the videos of people LARPING on youtube. Point is: IS that whats going on here? ARE these AGI risk people… just a bunch of people creating a fantasy world… where they can argue with each other about this stuff…playing a bunch of different characters where anybody ELSE that wants to play HAS to accept a WHOLE TON of PREMISES before they GET to where they’re HAVING these conversations?Well let’s TEST that criticism…and let’s DO it in the form of a dialogue. CLASSIC format in the history |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-15|of philosophy. And AS you do in a dialogue let’s hear from BOTH sides of the argument: one one side from the AI RISK person who’s ALARMED by the idea of general intelligence…and the OTHER side from the skeptic…who’s not BUYING any of this. Let’s start with them.The skeptic could say…for you to be SCARED about the possibility of an AGI in today’s world…you have to be making a TON of assumptions about HOW this thing’s gonna behave…and MOST of those assumptions come DOWN to the fact… that you’re PROJECTING your HUMAN way of thinking …ONTO this thing that is NOT gonna be thinking like a human. That’s your problem!For example just to name one of MANY…the SURVIVAL instinct we’re all born with. How can ANYONE in their right mind assume that we’re gonna TURN this AGI ON for the first time… and that it’s gonna be THINKING like a survival oriented creature like WE are?How can you worry about something like a preemptive strike against people because it’s SCARED it’s gonna get turned off? That sounds like science fiction. I mean you HAVE to remember this thing is essentially a CIRCUIT board. You GIVE this thing a GOAL… and |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-16|it executes it. If we don’t PROGRAM all these nasty SURVIVAL instincts into it…it wont ever HAVE them!But somebody on the AI risk side of things might say back: well you’re right that people project their humanity onto these things WAY too much…but what you’re saying about survival…is just not true…and we KNOW it’s not true…. because we’ve run the experiments to test it out. The concept’s called Instrumental Convergence. The idea is simple. Whenever ANYTHING, even an artificial intelligence is given some sort of primary GOAL that it has to carry out. There are certain SUB GOALS, lower level goals that NATURALLY are REQUIRED to be able to carry out the PRIMARY goal. Survival almost ALWAYS ends up being one of them, though there are a LOT of goals that instrumentally converge. The philosopher Eliezer Yudkowsky writes, “Whether your goal is to bake a cheesecake, or fly to Australia, you could benefit from matter, energy, the ability to complete plans and not dying in the next five minutes.”So the person on the AI risk side of the argument could say even if the AGI DOESN’T have a survival instinct programmed INTO it…it will STILL have a desire to survive so that |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-17|it can carry out whatever goal IS programmed into it. And by the way you can FIND this SAME distinction between Nietzsche and Schopenhaur 150 years ago. But then the skeptic could come back… and say okay, point taken. But honestly…survival is the LEAST of it…how about all the OTHER things people start to assume about AI? That it’s gonna be hostile. That it’s gonna want to be in charge…that it’s gonna be thinking like a chimpanzee in terms of hierarchies like WE do? Why are you assuming that…look just because your DAD had toxic masculinity…doesn’t mean my ROBOT’S gotta have it. Because look: something having a higher level of intelligence… does NOT necessarily MEAN that it’s gonna be HOSTILE towards everything that’s less intelligent. For example, a DEER…is FAR MORE intelligent than a predatory insect like a spider. But when you’re out camping in the woods…nobody ever worries about a deer coming and attacking you while you’re asleep. Looking for your leftover salad. This person might say this is transparently, just another example of us being scared of our OWN worst tendencies as people, manifesting in something else that’s way stronger than us. But we can PROGRAM this AI to NOT have |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-18|those tendencies. And we have NO REASON to ASSUME this thing WOULDN’T HAVE a moral framework that’s COMPASSIONATE towards other living things. Where it USES that SUPERINTELLIGENCE… to come up with creative ways to accomplish its goals and NOT mess with anything else. And I think somebody on the AGI risk side of things might say okay, I guess…you’re right that we can’t KNOW whether we turn this thing on and it is just the nicest being we’ve ever come across. And we CAN’T KNOW for sure whether AS this thing extends into its practically infinite cognitive horizons, if for THOUSANDS of years it will just always have our well being as it’s number one priority. It’s NOT that any of what you just said is impossible…its just…as Sam Harris says…a STRANGE thing to be CONFIDENT about. We don’t know if it will GO that way. We don’t know if it WON’T. Which is WHY…EVERYTHING you’ve been talking about so far by the way, the survival instinct…the chimpanzee level hostility…in other words whether or not this intelligence is ALIGNED with human values…this is one of the BIGGEST conversations that’s going on in this area. If we ACCEPT this thing is more intelligent and |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-19|powerful than we can possibly comprehend…the QUESTION is HOW do we make sure it’s VALUES are NOT ONLY aligned with our values right now…but HOW do we make sure that goes on endlessly into the future…even as our values change? This is often called the ALIGNMENT problem by people HAVING these conversations.  And it can be TEMPTING to think: look we’ve been doing moral philosophy now for thousands of years. Don’t we have some common sense VALUES we can program INTO this thing and not have to worry about it? Isn’t that what all those hours rambling about trollies was supposed to be about? Objective moral ideals?But it’s not that simple. As Eleazar Yudkowsky puts it: we don't know how to get internal, psychological goals into systems at this point...we only know how to get outwardly, observable behaviors, into systems. So, if there was some sort of domino effect that happened that we didn’t see coming where a super intelligence suddenly EMERGED over the course of the next 30 days…we wouldn’t know… how to program these values IN… even if we HAD them, which we don’t. And EVEN if all human beings could AGREE on which values to put in, which we |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-20|CAN’T…we’d STILL be in a place …where we’re at the mercy of EVERY unintended consequence that you can possibly imagine… and EVEN all the ones you DIDN’T imagine. There’s a famous thought experiment in these conversations that illustrates this point by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. You’ll hear about it if you’re TALKING to people about AGI. It’s called the paperclip MAXIMIZER. Imagine a world where people are trying to align an AGI and they want to play it safe so they give it what SEEMS like to THEM… to be a totally SIMPLE goal to accomplish. They tell it to make paperclips. And by the way, get as EFFICIENT as you can at MAKING those paperclips… and make as MANY of those paperclips as you possibly can.It starts out great…the things making paperclips. But THEN it starts improving. Starts mining the earths resources…eventually develops nanotechnology, eventually starts mining human BEINGS as sources of carbon to find ways to make more paperclips. The point of the story is: EVEN something as seemingly innocuous as making paperclips, when the stakes are AS HIGH as when you have a superintelligence executing this stuff that is out of your control…even making paperclips can have devastating |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-21|unintended consequences. And if paperclips are too theoretical for you how about a real world example…you could command a superintelligence…to cure or eliminate cancer, and while you’re DOING it…don’t kill any human beings in the process. Seems like some totally reasonable set of parameters NOBODY could be mad at. But then imagine the thing finds a way…. to decapitate human heads and keep the people alive inside of jars…but hey, now they don’t have a body anymore…and I was looking at stats…MOST of the cancer goes on in the BODY. Cancer numbers are WAY down since the heads have gone in jars! I don’t understand what you’re so MAD about?Now it should be said there’s a lot of people currently WORKING on solutions to the alignment problem. The field seems to be moving AWAY from the idea that we’re EVER gonna be able to come up with strict protocols that account for EVERY unintended consequence imaginable. Both Stuart Russel and Eliezer Yudkowsky are people doing good work in this field if you’re looking for someone to read.But that said…let’s get back to the SKEPTIC of all this that was in the conversation before. Another POPULAR opinion that people like to say back |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-22|at this point…. when they’re confronted with JUST HOW COMPLICATED it is to ALIGN a system like this…is that maybe that’s true, but maybe we don’t really need to be PERFECT when it comes to alignment. I mean given how COMPLICATED the alignment process seems to be…maybe our REAL goal should be… to just be able to CONTROL the AGI. And THAT seems EASY! As cousins of chimpanzees we are EXPERTS in the violence realm. We KNOW this thing would HAVE to run on electricity at LEAST at first. When the thing starts to show signs of getting out of hand…can’t we just UNPLUG it? And that’s a silly way of saying… can’t we launch an EMP at it? Can’t we just shut down the internet or shoot missiles at it? I mean is this REALLY that complicated? We just don’t ever let the thing get too powerful!People on the AGI risk side of things may ask back do you really think that’s ACTUALLY how it’s gonna go down? Stuart Russell says just from a game theoretical perspective…that’s KINDA like you saying I’m gonna play chess against this supercomputer that’s WAY SMARTER than me, WAY better at chess…but don’t worry the SECOND |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-23|it starts to BEAT me too bad…I’ll just checkmate it. It’s like…if you could CHECKMATE it on command… you wouldn’t need to be PLAYING against it in the FIRST place to benefit from its intelligence. It’s a STRANGE THING to be CONFIDENT about…that we’ll just NUKE the thing if it gets out of hand, problem solved!To which the skeptic could say back okay I was joking about the missiles. But aren’t there OTHER ways to CONTROL an AGI…ways that involve us PREVENTING it from ever getting out in the first place? Wouldn’t THAT be a viable strategy?And YES IT IS. In theory. That’s why NEXT to the ALIGNMENT problem another BIG area of conversation that’s going on in this field is known as the CONTROL problem or the CONTAINMENT problem. This is why a lot of private companies that are DEVELOPING this technology, keep this stuff LOCKED UP… inside of a black box. But even with black boxes…the SAME problems start to emerge. You imagine a superintelligence TRAPPED inside of a black box. How do you know this is a PERFECT black box with no way of escaping? Software has bugs. Do we really put ourselves in a spot where the |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-24|future of humanity relies on a computer coder being perfect once? How do you know… you’re not going to be PERSUADED by this superintelligence to let it out? Stuart Russel says to imagine YOURSELF… being trapped in a prison where the warden and the guards are all five year old kids. Now you’re WAY more intelligent than them. You know things they can’t POSSIBLY come up with on their own…and you look at the way they’re acting…and they’re acting in a way that is totally dangerous to themselves, to everyone AROUND THEM, they’re about to burn the whole place down. Do you from INSIDE of your prison cell try to teach them EVERYTHING they need to FIX the situation…do you teach them all how to read through the bars…teach them how to use power tools, teach them why its important to share…do you do it THAT way? Or is the more RESPONSIBLE thing to do to convince one of these dumb five year olds to let you out of the cage…and then HELP them all once you get outside? Again, the thing doesn’t even need to have MALICE towards human beings for it to NOT want to be contained. So BOTH the |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-25|alignment AND the containment problem… are FAR from things that are SOLVED that we can just wait around on.And look ALL THESE CRITICISMS from the side of the skeptic…the person concerned about AGI wouldn’t see all this as ANTAGONISTIC. At the end of the day from THEIR point of view…this IS the skeptic PARTICIPATING in the discussion about AGI alignment and containment. They just are at an earlier stage of their understanding of the issue and welcome to this level of the discussion. Now we STARTED this section of the episode by accepting a point from Sam Harris. That there’s only TWO major premises you need to ACCEPT… substrate independence and continued progress… and that if we ACCEPT those we will CERTAINLY, with enough time, be able to produce a general intelligence one day. But it NEEDS to be said. There’s people that disagree with that. They’d say he’s making a LOT more assumptions by making THOSE assumptions. He’s smuggling in the computational theory of mind, he’s assuming intelligence is something reducible to rote information processing, he’s glossing over some of the possibilities of embodied cognition…but these people would say that EVEN IF we’re just gonna stick to those two premises he |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-26|mentioned…those two things are STILL FILLED with a TON of IFs… that we have NO IDEA whether they’re EVER gonna become WHENS. And that those things NEED to be acknowledged. For example we have NO IDEA whether the massive progress we’ve seen in the last few years in the field of AI… is just a bunch of low hanging fruit. That we’re going through an INITIAL phase with the software where we’re seeing TONS of development…but that very soon we’re gonna hit some sort of WALL where there is a point of diminishing returns. Seems LIKELY that could be a possibility. I mean the ONLY example of general intelligence that we HAVE took BILLIONS of years of evolution. Which is NOT an argument that it HAS to take that long…it’s just an argument trying to illustrate the potential complexity we’re dealing with when it comes to organizing concepts, the ability to create NEW concepts, link them into EXISTING concepts in a meaningful way…that’s a pretty big task that’s not yet being done. Another IF is when it comes to hardware. Maybe we SOLVE the SOFTWARE side of this AGI in the next couple years…but maybe it takes centuries …or is IMPOSSIBLE… to |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-27|have the hardware that can RUN this sort of software. Or maybe it’s just so expensive to run it will never be scalable.This kind of person could say BACK to Sam Harris: all you’re DOING here is indulging in a very self-justifying LOOP of arguments. You’re saying hey, it’s POSSIBLE for a superintelligence to be among us one day…so let’s have a bunch of conversations about how the WORLD might end… IF that happens! But under THAT logic…why not just be worried about EVERYTHING? Why not worry about genetic engineering and chimeras taking over the planet? Why not worry about facial recognition technology? Why not worry about gain of FUNCTION research? And to Dr. Sam Harris…I mean.. I’m not trying to speak for him here, this is just my opinion about what he might say: but I think he might say…Yes. We SHOULD be worried about ALL those things you just mentoined! And not worried like we’re being DOOMSAYERS about this stuff running around panicked, but of course…we SHOULD be CONCERNED about our relationship to science and technology. Keep in mind…this is the same Sam Harris that back in 2015 is doing an interview, and at the time it may have just seemed |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-28|like a throwaway comment to many…but he’s talking in this interview… and he’s saying how when we’re facing the upcoming election in the united states and we’re trying to decide who we want at the helm of the ship in terms of candidates…that we HAVE to consider the possibility of something drastic happening, something like a SUPERBUG or a pandemic breaking out in the future that we’re NOT prepared for that CAUSES a global catastrophe. THAT’S all the way back in 2015. This is CLEARLY a man doing his WORK… that is self-aware of this MOMENT that we’re living through…where we have to RE-EXAMINE our relationship to technology… because there has NEVER really been THIS MUCH at stake when a new piece of technology comes out… as in 2023. And this brings me back to the question we asked at the beginning of the episode. IS technology…simply neutral. Is it just a TOOL to be used for good or evil…and it’s OUR job to incentivize the good actors and eliminate the bad. OR has technology BECOME something that we NO LONGER have the PRIVILEGE to have a REACTIONARY policy towards?Because that’s TYPICALLY how this works, right? A new technology is developed. |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-29|Usually in the business world where the only gatekeeper between the public and a new piece of tech is some ambitious CEO driven by a profit motive. And then the widespread USE of the new product is seen as a sort of EXPERIMENT our society is running… in real time. And then any NEGATIVE effects that start to show up the government takes a look at them… and passes regulations to try to protect the public AFTER the fact. FANTASTIC STRATEGY. When the stakes of technology are low. Back when we’re making vacuum pumps in the 1600’s. Back when someone’s buying a blender or a TV set for their house. But how about with AGI? With nuclear technology? Autonomous weapons? Bioengineering? Technology is not a NEUTRAL thing. Foucault says to always be skeptical of the things that have power over you that CLAIM to be neutral. People in science and technology studies have said for DECADES now that a new piece of technology ALWAYS carries with it certain “affordances”. Meaning that when something new comes out…there’s always NEW things that it allows people to do that they couldn’t do before…but it also takes AWAY things that people USED to be able to |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-30|do. And to the skeptic in this episode saying that it’s SILLY to worry about the future possibility of artificial general intelligence…that anybody WORRIED about it is buying into a WHOLE LOT OF IFs…that haven’t yet become whens. Someone on the AGI risk side of things might say that given the stakes of the technology that we’re producing…we don’t have the luxury of waiting for those IF’s to become whens.We have to HAVE these conversations about AGI now…because THIS IS the new level of MINDFULNESS we need to apply to new technologies… BEFORE they’re released to the public or used in an unregulated way where people get hurt. And look, EVEN if ALL of this stuff with AGI NEVER happens…say we hit some sort of a wall where AGI is impossible and this era’s looked back on as a bunch of dumb tech-obsessed monkeys larping in the woods…these conversations are STILL producing RESULTS when it comes to reexamining our relationship to tech. For example, think of the alignment problem, and how that SAME line of conversation may have SAVED us from some of the perils we’ve experienced with social MEDIA over the years. If your ALGORITHMS on a social media feed are aligned |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-31|to the goal of MAXIMIZING the engagement of the viewer…then if misinformation and political antagonism is what GETS the population to engage with stuff the MOST…then THAT’S what people are gonna see! Think of the conversations around the CONTAINMENT problem of AGI and the nuclear power disasters of the 20th century. In the SAME WAY we in the united states have an FDA…and the idea is that it acts as a barrier so that when we buy something in the store we’re not buying, you know, uncle cletus’s home brew where he’s just in his cellar stirring up a pot of aspirin..do we need SOME sort of BARRIER in place when it comes to the release of new technologies? And IS the GOVERNMENT…the best one to be providing that SERVICE? In a world where technological innovation is what we DO…how do you create these BARRIERS to releasing technology… without at the SAME TIME, STIFLING technological innovation? These are ALL interesting questions to talk about with your FRIENDS. But make no mistake these are ALL important questions about the time you’re living in that if people exist in the future they will look back on the time you’re living and say those people did |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-32|the work of reexamining their relationship to technology, and boy aren’t we glad that they did. I’m certainly glad you chose to listen to a podcast today talking about it. Next time we’re gonna be talking about NARROW AI and it’s potential impacts on society. SOME that are going on right now. I know I said last time that was gonna be a part of THIS episode. Well this is more for you to listen to I’m certainly grateful that you decided to listen to a podcast about this… it just seems like some useful information for people to have being alive today. But I want to close today by acknowledging one point that we haven’t brought up at ALL this episode…and it MAY at FIRST glance seem like an obvious solution to ALL of this: why not just BAN…AGI?I mean we put moratoriums on OTHER tech that’s dangerous. It’s illegal to clone people. It’s illegal to build a nuclear reactor in your garage. Why don’t we just do the same thing with AGI?Well FUNNY you should ask. That’s ANOTHER thing that makes this a particularly COMPLICATED brand of existential risk. We CAN’T…stop…at this point. We are living in a world… with |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr-33|quadrillions of dollars up for grabs to ANYBODY who has the insight and the free time it takes to CRACK this thing. Couple that with the fact that this is NOT LIKE a nuclear reactor or cloning where you may need a TEAM of scientists to be able to monitor and regulate it. NO with AGI…GPUs… are everywhere. Knowledge about algorithms and how to improve them… you don’t gotta be in a SECRET SISTERHOOD to be able to get ACCESS to this stuff. So the ONLY thing some people feel like we can do…is just to win the race to the finish line. There’s talk about maybe putting a temporary PAUSE on this stuff, but everybody knows even THAT would only be temporary. What seems certain… is that this is nothing like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. Where everyone’s gung ho about nuclear technology until there’s a couple major accidents and then governments around the world pump the brakes in the typical, REACTIONARY policy sort of way. And IF you’re somebody just frothing at the mouth to WIN this technological arms race…cheerleading the tech barons of the world all the way to the finish line…that’s fine…but there may come a day where |2023-11-28T20:15:28.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-ha6yr|184|Episode #184 - Is Artificial Intelligence really an existential threat?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-0|  So no doubt since November of 2022… with the launch of ChatGPT and the job the media’s done to make everybody and their mom aware of large language models and developments in the field of AI…no doubt many of you have heard the news…and no doubt MOST of you… have tried OUT something like ChatGPT and had a conversation with it. And maybe after HAVING that conversation…you felt pretty impressed. Like wow…this thing seems like a REAL PERSON. It’s giving me some pretty well formed, coherent RESPONSES to all the stuff I’m asking it. I mean this is NOTHING like that paperclip that used to harass me on windows XP service pack 2, this things comin’ for my FAMILY. Maybe you’ve even seen those conversations people have had with an AI…where its PROFESSING its love for the person asking it questions…you should leave your family. They don’t love you like I do. That REALLY happened. Maybe you’ve heard about people recently talking about the possibility…of us BEING on the VERGE…of AGI. Or artificial GENERAL intelligence…the LONG prophesied stage of DEVELOPMENT in the field of AI… where things are apparently gonna go from what people call WEAK AI…these are things like calculators, |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-1|watches, things that can SIMULATE some single ASPECT of human intelligence…and STRONG AI…a different LEVEL of AI that has the ability to understand, learn, adapt…AI that can implement knowledge on a level that matches or EXCEEDS that of a human being. And maybe you’ve HEARD about all the doomsday scenarios as to what’s gonna go down if something like that were to ever be invented. But is that really something we gotta be worried about… right now? Are we really on the verge of a technological singularity… where artificial intelligence becomes an invasive species that WE’VE created. Are we CURRENTLY in a technological arms race to create something that’s thousands of times more intelligent than we can ever HOPE to be with goals of a scope we can’t POSSIBLY begin to understand? Is ChatGPT… just the first iteration… of an amoebae that will eventually evolve into ALL THAT… if just given enough time?To answer THAT question…the FIRST place we gotta start with is a far less AMBITIOUS question…and that’s NOT whether ChatGPT is on verge of breaking out of its black box and taking over the world…but whether or not machines LIKE ChatGPT… are INTELLIGENT, in the SAME WAY a human |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-2|being is intelligent. Are these machines REALLY DOING…the SAME stuff WE are doing when we solve problems? And on a more FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL than that: maybe as you’ve HAD a conversation with one of these things, being the kind of person that listens to a SHOW like this…maybe you’ve asked the very philosophical question…hey FORGET about understanding or intelligence for a second…I wonder as I’m TALKING to ChatGPT…if this machine is THINKING…in the same way that I’m thinking. Like what’s going on when there’s the three dots blinking and its loading…when it’s PROCESSING and DETERMINING what to say next? Is that the computer THINKING? Is THINKING something that’s rigidly definable by the way I’m thinking with MY brain? Or can THINKING be defined in MANY ways?  IF we want to answer these questions…and if we don’t want to spend our entire lives FALSELY equating OUR intelligence with artificial intelligence…then the FIRST step, philosophers realized LONG ago, was going to be to pay VERY CLOSE attention to EXACTLY what it is that computers are DOING.  Bit of historical context here: this modern version of the conversation around whether machines can think, or are intelligent, essentially BEGAN with the work of a guy named |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-3|Alan Turing. Turing was an absolute genius mathematician… and back in HIS time back in the early 1900’s, he was fascinated by stuff going on in the philosophy of mind and mechanical engineering. He was ALSO… a TOTAL visionary. I mean it’s clear in MANY ways he foresaw the age of digital computing DECADES before it even happened… and BEING in that place of awareness…SEEING the writing on the wall back then HE came up with… what HE thought was an INEVITABLE question… that people were going to have to eventually take SERIOUSLY if things kept going in this direction…the question was: how would we know if machines were intelligent… if they were in fact intelligent? It’s actually a pretty DIFFICULT question to answer the more you think about it. I mean at what point does something go from weak AI, something like your alarm clock…to something that can have an understanding of things? To something that is intelligent, to something that has a mind? How do you even begin to ANSWER those questions?Well if we WANNA figure out an answer: we gotta start somewhere… and Alan Turing came up with an idea for a way to TEST for machine intelligence. |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-4|You’ve probably heard of it…it’s called the Turing test…it’s famous at this point. The idea is that if you’re having two different text conversations, one talking to a human being, the other talking to an AI…if someone is FOOLED by an AI into thinking that they’re TALKING to a real person…then that AI has PASSED the Turing test… or in other words we can now SEE that AI, as something that possesses, intelligence. His thinking was look, if we want to know if something’s intelligent or not…if an AI can BEHAVE intelligently, to the extent that it FOOLS something intelligent…then at THAT point, what are we even splitting hairs over, let’s just call the thing intelligent! And it seems like a PRETTY safe place to begin morally speaking too…let’s TREAT something like it HAS intelligence, if it’s BEHAVING like an intelligent CREATURE.  But it wasn’t long before philosophers started noticing PROBLEMS with the Turing test. Among them was a guy named John Searle, he comes along in the mid 1980’s and IN his work… he’s in PART responding to the Turing test when he asks a very important question that would CHANGE this whole discussion: he asks is it REALLY true…that if a |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-5|machine BEHAVES intelligently…then it must be safe to assume that it IS intelligent? See because as we’ve talked about…we have pretty good reason to be skeptical about that assumption…remember the end of last episode with the example of looking at a self driving car…and how from the outside, it may APPEAR to be making free choices based on a kind of libertarian free will, it’s parallel parking on its own, it’s avoiding accidents, it’s checking traffic on different routes to where you’re going…but that despite how it may look, we KNOW it ISN’T making free choices because WE are the ones that programmed it…in the same sort of way…here’s John Searle in the 1980’s saying: maybe when we come across a computer that PASSES the Turing test, maybe THEY ALSO… only APPEAR to be intelligent from the outside. But how could that be the case if it were true? John Searle goes to work and lays out what at THIS point has become a FAMOUS distinction in these conversations about AI…it’s the distinction between SYNTAX… and SEMANTICS. Digital computer programs, to Searle, DO NOT OPERATE with an UNDERSTANDING of the physical world like you or I do. Computers operate on the level… |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-6|of a formal SYNTAX. Which is to say…that they read computer code. Computer code that’s made up of symbols, ultimately of 1’s and 0’s. But there’s no point where a computer understands the MEANING of those symbols in physical, causal reality.In fact if you THINK about it that’s PART of what makes computers and computer PROGRAMMING such a powerful tool in the FIRST place. They can run ANY NUMBER of different programs, on a TON of different types of computer hardware, and the FACT these things are SO INTERCHANGABLE… is ONLY made possible by the fact that these programs… are written in a way where they are fundamentally, manipulating 1’s and 0’s. In other words…to John Searle…computers are capable of manipulating symbols in AMAZING ways at this level of SYNTAX…but that doesn’t say ANYTHING in the SLIGHTEST about that computer’s ability to understand the, semantic MEANING of ANYTHING that it’s producing. This is syntax vs semantics. Take a calculator as a basic example of this. Everybody knows a calculator is capable of a SUPER HUMAN level of calculation when it comes to a single aspect of human intelligence, solving arithmetic…and it does it’s JOB it produces certain outputs when given certain INPUTS by |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-7|following a preprogrammed set of rules. But NOBODY out there actually thinks that a CALCULATOR understands what mathematics is. Nobody out there thinks the calculator knows the MEANING of these calculations and how they’re significant to human life. No, a calculator’s… just running numbers. ‘=No matter HOW powerful of a calculator you have, I mean you can have a FULL RIDE scholarship to MIT and have NEVER spoken to another human being in the last five years…and John Searle would say EVEN your calculator is nowhere NEAR powerful enough to make the MOVE from syntax to semantics. Because it has NOTHING to do with PROCESSING power. The calculator EXISTS at the level of syntax, NOTHING more!Now you may say BACK at this point wait wait wait…John Searle, I hear what you’re saying. I get it with a calculator…but hold on…when I’m talking to something like ChatGPT…that thing is OBVIOUSLY…WAY DIFFERENT than a calculator. I mean I told this thing what was in my refrigerator…this thing wrote a shopping list for me. This things telling me about gravity…about social issues…CLEARLY this thing has an understanding of the OUTSIDE WORLD and what all of this stuff MEANS. But John Searle might say back…are you |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-8|entirely SURE about that? And to explain why he’d ASK that question: enter one of the most famous parables that’s been written in this modern period of the philosophy of mind…and it was INTRODUCED by john searle…it’s called the Chinese Room argument. Here’s how it goes:Imagine yourself sitting in a room alone and for the sake of Searle’s example…also imagine that you don’t speak a SINGLE word of Chinese. For me, that wasn’t too difficult to do. Now imagine in this room you are fed little slips of paper under the door by people on the other SIDE of the door. And that ON these slips of paper…are mysterious SYMBOLS that you don’t understand…unbeknownst to you these are actually questions being written to you in Chinese.Your job in this room…is to produce a RESPONSE to these slips of paper. Basic input/output. Now despite not knowing what ANY of these symbols mean…it doesn’t matter to you that much. Because in the middle of the room is a table… and on the table you have a GIANT BOOK, WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, with a sophisticated set of RULES and PARAMETERS to follow for the manipulation of these symbols. Unbeknownst to you these are |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-9|just RULES that allow you to respond in Chinese to the questions written in Chinese. You take a slip of paper…you identify the symbols inside of the book…you follow the rules the book gives you for which symbols are the proper RESPONSE to these symbols…and you send ANOTHER slip of paper back OUT of the room with your response on it. Basic input/output. Point is if you were given enough time to process the information… despite not speaking a WORD of the language, you could be sending SLIPS of paper out of this room with RESPONSES written on them… that were INDISTINGUISHABLE from the responses of a native Chinese speaker. They’ve actually RUN this experiment in the real world…and it works, the person on the other side thinks they’re SPEAKING to a person who knows Chinese. So why does any of this matter? Well to John Searle, Alan Turing was wrong. The Turing test …does NOT tell us that a machine’s intelligent. I mean sure… with a sophisticated enough set of rules and parameters manipulating at the level of syntax…a computer can CERTAINLY produce responses that are INDISTINGUISHABLE from those of an intelligent person. But in light of the Chinese Room…would that in |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-10|ANY way… PROVE that a computer had intelligence? Would it prove that it had ANY understanding whatsoever about what it was saying? Is there ANY reason to believe, no matter HOW powerful of a processor it had…that it somehow magically made the move from syntax to semantics? To Searle the answer is NO. And he had SEVERAL different goals in this area of his work…I mean, ASIDE from trying to get to the bottom of exactly what machines are capable of and what exactly we MEAN when we talk about INTELLIGENCE or UNDERSTANDING in machines…maybe the most IMPORTANT point that he’s trying to defend with all this is to try to protect the conversation of what EXACTLY CONSTITUTES…a MIND. And at what point does a computer…BECOME a MIND? Does it even WORK that way? On one hand, from a scientific perspective, as it stands: we only really SEE minds in highly complex information processing systems. But does that mean that a computer, that’s an information processing system… can make that jump from MERELY information processing…to having a MIND that EMERGES because certain FUNCTIONS are occurring. This way of thinking is one small TYPE of what’s known as FUNCTIONALISM, and SEARLE’s not a |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-11|fan of it just for the record. As HE describes it…the idea of this TYPE of functionalism is that there are people out there who believe…that it doesn’t matter WHAT the material CONDITIONS are AROUND this information processing…doesn’t matter WHAT it IS carbon, silicone, or transistors on a board…these people think if the RIGHT collection of inputs and outputs are going on…a MIND spontaneously emerges. This is no doubt the TYPE of mindset that leads people to suspect that something like ChatGPT may be DEVELOPING, a level of understanding and intelligence that CONSTITUTES a mind. But Searle asks the question…what if I made a computer… out of a bunch of old beer cans and windmills and ropes and I tied them all together? Put on transducers so this thing can perceive photons, sensors so it can feel vibrations…if you ran all the necessary inputs and outputs THROUGH this thing…would a MIND spontaneously emerge? To him the answer is clearly no…CLEARLY there are at least SOME material conditions that need to be met in order for what WE experience as a mind to be possible. This is in PART a conversation about substrate dependence. To criticize John Searle for a second…why should we assume |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-12|that the TYPE of information processing going on inside of the brain that PRODUCES what we experience as a MIND…can ONLY go on in biological matter? I mean, THAT seems a little anthropocentric…doesn’t it? But Searle would want to give a few clarifications. He’s NOT saying that MINDS only exist in humans…OR that they can ONLY exist in biological matter. What he IS saying is that it’s just FALSE to try to equate the information processing of computers with what a HUMAN brain is doing. THAT’S a leap that we have ZERO BASIS to be making. And this TENDENCY for people to try to DO SO in our modern world…or for them to say it’s just RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER…they’ll say oh, we just need MORE information processing, MORE sophisticated rules…and THEN the mind of a human will emerge from a computer…most of that’s coming from the metaphors people use when thinking about things that are mysterious…LIKE the human mind. Yet ANOTHER big nod to the work of Susan Sontag and others here…but John Searle says we do this IN EVERY GENERATION when it comes to the mind, we COMPARE it to some popular piece of technology that seems complicated to us at |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-13|the time. He said when HE was a kid everybody compared the mind to a telephone switchboard…THAT was how the mind works. You read Freud’s work a little earlier and he was comparing the mind to hydraulic systems and electromagnetism. He says Leibniz compared the mind to a mill. He says the people that think the mind is just the right software being run on the right hardware…all THOSE people are doing is committing the same mistake in OUR time. But Searle thinks there’s FAR MORE to it than there just being MIND.EXE running on the right hardware. Without going TOO much into it so we can stay on the topic of AI…HE suspects… that minds are a higher level feature of the brain and thus REQUIRE our biological makeup to be able to exist in the way they do. That…yeah, we only SEE minds in complex information processing systems so far…but we ALSO only see minds so far in BIOLOGICAL information processing systems, so despite some people being seemingly OBSESSED with making the MIND into merely a type of software…it may be that there’s something about our biology that we just need. As he says you can create a computer MODEL |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-14|of a mind but you can’t yet create an ACTUAL mind. In the same way he says that you can create an elaborate computer MODEL of digestion and how it works…but you give that computer model a piece of pizza…it’s NEVER gonna be able to digest it. But ANYWAY…the conversation about syntax and semantics CHANGED the way that people were TALKING about Artificial Intelligence. And there were critiques of the Chinese Room Argument… we’ll talk about them on a future episode. But for the sake of understanding ChatGPT it’s important to understand in many ways… this CONVERSATION went on over the years to become EVEN MORE complicated than it was in the 1980’s…mostly BECAUSE of ADVANCEMENTS in the sophistication of the software people are trying to COMPARE to the human mind. See, someone in our world today could EASILY say okay Searle…I see what you’re saying and all…and FAIR POINT…back in 1985. You know, when Steve Jobs is at the pawn shop selling his little circular, ironic glasses so he can pay RENT that month I’m sure it was a great point THEN. But this is 2023…things like ChatGPT, LLMs…these are not computer programs like back then. These days we got things |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-15|like machine learning. ChatGPT is trained on BILLIONS of parameters of information. This kind of person may say the GENIUS of how these things WORK…is that they’re given MASSIVE amounts of information about how the world is, they use their INCREDIBLE level of computational ability to look for PATTERNS in the data…and then they use PROBABILITY… to PREDICT what the next WORD will be in a given sequence considering how all the OTHER sequences of words looked in their training data. And these things get BETTER as they go. They learn from their mistakes. CLEARLY this is something VERY DIFFERENT than what we had in back in 1985…and CLEARLY… this is starting to knock on the door of what we MEAN when we say intelligence, RIGHT? Isn’t MOST of what we DO as people just pattern recognition from massive amounts of experiential data? I mean it can SEEM like the sky’s the limit here. Just GIVE this machine the sum total of all the wisdom in the history of the world…give it EVERY useful experience a person has ever had…and then ask it to SO LVE for EVERY scientific problem and give us a total understanding of the universe. But just like |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-16|SEARLE asked about the computers back in 1985…there are philosophers in 2023 who would say BACK to that: are you ENTIRELY SURE…that THAT’S what this thing’s gonna be able to do? Among these philosophers is a guy named Noam Chomsky. We covered his book manufacturing consent on this podcast before…and for whatever its worth there are few philosophers if any who are alive today that will be remembered as being as prolific, AS influential as he’s been. I actually personally watch a LOT of interviews of Noam Chomsky I find his take on American Politics fascinating and in every interview I see with him lately…because he’s 95 years old at this point…every interviewer just has to ask a question like he’s already dead, like looking back on your life late Mr. Chomsky, what’s the one thing you wish you could take back of ALL the mistakes you made? What is the happiest moment you ever felt while you were still here with us my boy?They ask all this stuff…but I see him as a guy that’s STILL doing relevant philosophical work to this day…his thoughts on ChatGPT and LLMs being only one PART of that. He co-wrote an article in the |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-17|New York Times in March of this year where the title of the article was: The False Promise of ChatGPT. What WAS the false promise of ChatGPT…well what he and his coauthors are RESPONDING to is any variation of that mentality that we just TALKED about…where, from the article: “These programs have been hailed as the first glimmers on the horizon of artificial general intelligence — that long-prophesied moment when mechanical minds surpass human brains not only quantitatively in terms of processing speed and memory size but also qualitatively in terms of intellectual insight, artistic creativity and every other distinctively human faculty.”Now WHY is this a false promise? Because to Noam Chomsky…the idea of AI as it currently exists SURPASSING or even MATCHING human intelligence…is science fiction. It’s called a LANGUAGE model, thats driven by artificial intelligence…but to him it has nothing to DO with human intelligence OR language in ANY capacity. To make his point…he often starts by making a distinction…he’d ask would you say ChatGPT’s an accomplishment in the field of engineering… or is it an accomplishment in the field of science. Because those are two, VERY different THINGS at their core. First of all: credit where credit’s due…large language models |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-18|he says are no doubt useful for SOME things. Transcription, translation, he gives a half dozen examples of USEFUL things it may eventually prove to do. After all… great feats of ENGINEERING… are very USEFUL for some things people want to do…think of a bridge that allows people to cross a river for example. But great feats when it comes to conducting science…THOSE are in an entirely different league of their own. Science is not just trying to build something USEFUL for people…SCIENCE is trying to understand something MORE about the elements of the world that we live in. But that’s the thing…how exactly do we accomplish that? Meaning what is the process? How do we actually make breakthroughs that allow us to understand the universe better? Is it by analyzing mountains of data about how the world is and then probabilistically trying to predict based on what we already know what the next breakthrough is going to BE in the sciences? Because if THAT were the case…then somebody should just let ChatGPT run wild, give it a six pack of redbull and have it solve all the mysteries of the universe. The PROBLEM is, Noam Chomsky says…that’s NOT what human beings are |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-19|DOING when they come up with scientific theories that lead to progress. From the article: “The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.”What we want in other words WHEN we’re conducting science are NOT theories that are PROBABLE based on what we already know…sometimes the theories that get us a BETTER understanding of the universe are highly IMPROBABLE, even COUNTER INTUITIVE. The article uses the example of someone holding an apple and then it falling to the ground. Scientific question you could ASK is: why is the apple…falling to the ground. Well during the time of Aristotle…the reason given for why the apple falls to the earth is because the EARTH is the apple’s natural place. Solid answer. During the time of Newton it was because of an invisible force of gravity. During the time of |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-20|Einstein it is because mass affects the curvature of space time. Now… if ChatGPT or any of these language models existed during the time of Aristotle…and they were TRAINED on the data that was available to the people of THAT time…in a system that is NOT designed to come up with NEW explanations…but instead one that just produces what the most PROBABLE word is to come next based on conversations it’s already seen between scientists in its TRAINING data…these models would NEVER predict something as IMPROBABLE… as the apple is falling because of the unseen curvature of a concept called space/time that nobodies gonna be talking about for thousands of years…these models would NEVER assume THAT’S what’s RESPONSIBLE for an apple falling towards earth. For THAT… we need people coming up with new explanations…for THAT to Noam Chomsky…we need ACTUAL intelligence. This is a classic example of what he calls undergeneration. And if you were to ask him…this is one of the PROBLEMS with ChatGPT…and what distinguishes Artificial Intelligence so far from actual HUMAN intelligence…it’s THIS…that they are ALWAYS prone to either undergeneration or overgeneration. These models either undergenerate… meaning they don’t generate all the responses they should or COULD… because their |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-21|answers are based on what the most common answers were in their training data…or they overgenerate, and give responses that technically fit into a sentence grammatically…but don’t ACTUALLY make any sense at all because the algorithm has no REAL conception of physical reality and what’s logically coherent. As Noam Chomsky says you ask this kind of algorithm to map out the periodic table… and it will give you all the elements that exist because it’s SEEN people talk about elements before…but BECAUSE it has no REAL conception of the underlying laws of chemistry or physics…it’ll ALSO give you all the elements that DON’T exist…and even a bunch of elements that can’t POSSIBLY exist. It’ll tell you elements like unobtanium from science FICTION books it’s been trained on. It will DO this…because ALL that a language model is doing is trying to generate text that LOOKS like text that it’s seen before. It really HAS… NO idea what the MEANING is of ANYTHING that it’s saying. This IS syntax vs semantics by the way…this IS the chinese room all OVER again…and this is why someone like Chomsky is going to say that a large language model in the current form that we have |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-22|them… is incapable of distinguishing the possible from the impossible. Here’s a quote about this VERY TOPIC…that’s NOT from the article: “This limitation reflects the fact that while these language models can generate creative and complex text, they don't actually "understand" the content in the way humans do. They don't formulate hypotheses, make novel scientific discoveries, or generate new theories. They simply predict the next most likely word or phrase based on the patterns they've learned from their training data.” And if you’re wondering if that’s just yet another biased quote from a hater like Noam Chomsky…that quote I just read…was actually from ChatGPT…I asked it to DEFEND itself…and it told me Chomsky’s right. Anyway this really IS the problem with large language models in their current form if we EVER want to say that they’re something STARTING to resemble AGI.Intelligence…when it comes to what human beings are doing when they USE intelligence to come up with the TYPE of scientific theory that sheds some light on our understanding of the universe…that intelligence REQUIRES the ability to not only know what CAN be the case…but also what cannot POSSIBLY be the case. MORAL reasoning, which an AGI would be doing…that requires the ability |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-23|to be able to distinguish between what OUGHT to be the case…but ALSO what ought to NEVER be the case.  And at least as it stands right now…that is NOT what these large language models are even close to doing. Chomsky calls what they’re actually doing if we wanted a more accurate description of the technology…is that its a kind of glorified autocomplete, like on your phone. Sophisticated, high tech, plagiarism… he called it once. Now this is FAR from the end of the conversation…this is just a single TAKE. ONE direction to go from here if you’re thinking like a philosopher… is to call into question the definitions that we’re using for the terms here. For example…why are we throwing around the word “intelligence” without being more specific? Like isn’t it important to examine what we MEAN when we say intelligence. Couldn’t MACHINES be capable of thinking and intelligence that just isn’t anything LIKE HUMAN intelligence? Another question is: does it even MATTER…if these things conform to some narrow definition of intelligence, as we currently think about it. Because one thing that CAN’T be understated… and this is ME talking not Noam Chomsky…EVEN IF…large language models are no where even CLOSE |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-24|to becoming artificial general intelligence…SIMPLY at the level of technology that AI is currently AT…AI is STILL something that’s VERY dangerous if for NO other reason than the fact that people BELIEVE, artificial intelligence IS close to being AGI. In the world today with all the headlines you see on your phone about how the AI revolution is here among us…you have this sort of…three headed monster going on with the people that are READING those headlines. One of the heads is that tech companies need to secure funding, and it’s NOT ENOUGH these days in silicon valley to just come out with a product, no you gotta create a product that is literally changing reality as we know it, so TECH companies are generating false hype to get funding and MEDIA companies looking for clicks will GLADLY capitulate…the SECOND head of the monster is a type of FUTURISM… that has religiously captivated a certain percentage of the population where they think all of our problems are gonna be solved by some technojesus savior coming down from the clouds…and THEN there’s the last head of the monster which is just an overall Hollywood sentiment that some people seem to have that |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-25|they just WANT this stuff to be true. They WANT to be living in the ERA where the AI revolution is happening. And that bias SHADES the way they see everything. So when they see a headline talking about how the singularity is near…when they have a conversation with chatGPT and they’re under the impression this thing is an all knowing ORACLE that’s SCOURING the internet for information and synthesizing it into genius insights for you…that misunderstanding of how the technology works…is dangerous. This could lead people to believe that this ISN’T, actually based on training data SELECTED by a handful of people at a company with agendas of their own. People could ask this thing for LIFE advice thinking it’s talking to a super intelligent being. Think of how tempting it would be to have this thing maybe make POLITICAL decisions for us…I mean, after all WITHIN this misunderstanding…this thing isn’t PRONE to the same biases that human BEINGS are. This thing isn’t LIMITED to a single brain or perspective. It can simulate the future… a TRILLION times from EVERY single perspective and come up with the best of all possible worlds. Again, IMAGINE what’s essentially a religion of people thinking that |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy-26|this Artificial Intelligence… is not just the best CANDIDATE we have to lead our society…it is actually better than the sum total of the intelligence of EVERY OTHER human being COMBINED. Imagine in a religious way trusting the decisions of our dear Artificial Intelligence leader. EVEN if the decisions its making don’t make sense to us…that’s just because we’re feeble humans…we just gotta have faith. But to bring this back to Noam Chomsky though…one of the biggest dangers of people misunderstanding what it IS that ChatGPT is doing…is that for every second that people spend talking to this thing worried about the fact that the singularity is just around the corner…that is one second that we are NOT spending, worrying about two ABSOLUTELY real existential threats that are facing humanity. The threat of nuclear war… and the threat of uncontrollable climate change. As he puts it at one point the fossil fuel companies and the banks are destroying the possibility for life on earth…and he’d ask: how long are we going to spend playing around with fancy toys, word generation technology before we get serious about addressing the things that genuinely, immanently have the ability to END human life as we |2023-11-28T20:14:00.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-nfwhy|183|Episode #183 - Is ChatGPT really intelligent?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-0|  So today we’re going to be exploring the question of whether or not free will is an illusion. And if you COME to this podcast here today with some reservations about the subject matter…maybe it seems overly abstract, maybe it seems a bit self-indulgent…maybe your long lost father, who you hadn’t seen in 30 years met up with you at a KFC TACO BELL and RAMBLED about free will to you for 30 minutes, and maybe it was a lot more interesting to HIM than it EVER was to YOU…if THAT’S what you’re coming to the podcast with…well then I hope by the end of the episode I can offer you a…SLIGHTLY different association on all that. Let’s make some NEW memories together. Because just like we talked about with the nature of C ONSCIOUSNESS on episode ONE of this series…the relationship between free will and determinism…I mean I get it on one level…it can definitely SEEM like one of these overly philosophical things to be spending your time worrying about…but in reality…if we’re JUST being honest… I think this topic ACTUALLY affects EVERYBODY AROUND us… on a level that is pretty easy for people to overlook if they’re |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-1|not paying attention. Whether or not you are TRULY making free decisions when you THINK you are…THAT affects the RICH person just as much as does the poor person. It affects people at EVERY… social, cultural or educational level. It affects the way we see OURSELVES. IT AFFECTS all these things…because what’s AT STAKE at BOTTOM…WHENEVER people stop and HAVE one of these conversations about free choice…is the very CONCEPT in our LIVES…of moral accountability. Whenever somebody does ANYTHING in this world…good OR bad…the question is always: how MUCH can we hold them ACCOUNTABLE for those good or bad decisions that they made?And the very STRUCTURE of human civilization is FOUNDED upon the idea… that we CAN hold people accountable. In fact, somebody could make the case… that NOT ONLY is this not an overly PHILOSOPHICAL thing to worry about…but that if you EVER wanted to be able to CALL yourself an informed citizen in ANY real sense of the term…again this isn’t a fun, wacky conversation…no, you have a RESPONSIBILITY… to understand the different SIDES of this debate and how it affects people!You know, every SMART person out there….ALWAYS HAS to remain careful about falling into that TRAP of the Dunning-Kruger |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-2|effect…where you’re OVERESTIMATING your level of understanding about something… because you HAVEN’T really taken the time to HEAR the full complexity of what’s being discussed. And then you’re smart, so you come up with convincing ARGUMENTS for bad ideas. And that while there’s no definitive ANSWER yet as to the question of whether free will is an illusion…there’s undeniable value in knowing the state of the conversation, where you fit into it, where other people are coming from with THEIR positions that you may disagree with. At some point you just gotta decide: how self aware are you going to be of the ideas that you’re carrying around? Now, there’s a lot to talk about, can’t POSSIBLY cover it all in 30 minutes, but I think we CAN make some real progress…so let’s START with some historical context. If you look back at the DISCUSSIONS that have gone on in the HISTORY of western philosophy…whether or not free will is an illusion…. is a topic that STANDS OUT among OTHERS…as PRETTY unique. It’s UNIQUE because MOST conversations in the history of philosophy… are the flavor of whatever TIME period they’re being discussed in. It all usually goes the same way: philosophers will ARGUE |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-3|about something for a while… and then one of about three things eventually happens. They come to an agreement about it and move on to something else. They argue about it… CAN’T agree and then realize years later they’ve been arguing about all the wrong things ENTIRELY. OR the conversation remains something open… almost like a collaborative GOOGLE DOC… where philosophers come in and try to make contributions over the course of next few decades. Some of those problems eventually get SOLVED. Some of them evaporate. But the discussion around whether or not free will is an illusion…that’s an example of an open dialogue that’s been going on, for the last 2500 years, and THAT’S just where the historical record ends by the way it NO DOUBT was going on for a long time before that. Now it’s VERY important to state here that the people TALKING about this stuff back then were NOT talking about free will and determinism as WE we’d be talking about them in 2023. BOTH of those terms…come highly loaded with thousands of years of discussion. BACK THEN what they were talking about probably would have more CLOSELY resembled… the difference between free ACTION…and FATE as predetermined |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-4|by a God. But that’s not what WE’RE talking about here today…we’re trying to examine the very SPECIFIC question… of whether FREE WILL is an illusion…so the natural FOLLOW up question has to be: what exactly do we mean… when we SAY that a person has free will? It may be useful to think of the concepts of free will and determinism, as being two, OPPOSITE directions that exist on a spectrum, that explains the level of agency of our actions. Picture the further LEFT you get on this spectrum… the more you believe that we are making FREE choices, and the further RIGHT you get… the more you believe our choices are DETERMINED by outside, preceding factors. Well there aren’t too many people out there living in today’s world…who believe that we are TOTALLY free… unencumbered by anything else AROUND us. I mean almost everyone sort of acknowledges…CLEARLY… there are things about the choices you make that are DETERMINED by prior events… unless if you speak German… you’re not free to speak German. You have very real PHYSICAL limitations…you’re a human being…you can’t box jump a skyscraper, bro. Your legs are made of spaghetti. And on a TOTALLY DIFFERENT level…you are clearly |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-5|HEAVILY influenced by, the experiences that you’ve happened to have in your life, the people that you’ve HAPPENED to know, the ideas that you’ve HAPPENED to be exposed to. The question for MOST people isn’t whether or not we are INFLUENCED by things in our lives…the question is to what EXTENT do these things DICTATE our behavior and to what extent is our free will able to step in and TRANSCEND those influences? On one end of the spectrum you have proponents of what’s called Libertarian Free Will…where the belief is that DESPITE these obvious influences…we ALWAYS have the capacity to freely choose a particular course of action. On the OTHER end of the spectrum though…we have what’s known as HARD determinism, or CAUSAL determinism. And no doubt because of how great SCIENCE has been at predictability…there are a LOT of people living in today’s world that think it very well may be the case…that if we had an exhaustive understanding of the laws of the universe and the psychology of the beings living within it…that EVERYTHING about your behavior, could be PERFECTLY predicted, by REFERENCING a prior cause. This is an extension of the famous thought experiment of Laplace’s Demon. Pierre-Simon Laplace, |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-6|in his work ALL the way back in the late 1700s says to imagine a hypothetical demon that exists… where if it knew the EXACT position of EVERY piece of matter in the universe…and it had TOTAL knowledge of the laws of physics that GOVERN the universe…then that demon could perfectly predict EVERY future physical event that was EVER going to happen. Obviously the idea is that if every piece of matter is subject to the same constant laws of physics… then we can just play the TAPE out so to speak…fast forward…this is nothing new, this is how astronomers can predict EXACTLY where JUPITER’S gonna be 20 years from now. Well the question you gotta ASK yourself is…if we can predict where JUPITERS gonna be 20 years from now…CAN Neil Degrasse Tyson predict where YOU’RE going to be 20 years from now? God I hope not. The question is: IN THEORY…if we had a TOTAL understanding of the universe and every event preceding back to the big bang…could we IN THEORY predict EXACTLY what it was that you were going to do next? On that SAME note could we predict what EVERYONE is going to do next? Hard determinists believe that |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-7|with ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE of the FACTS that underlie events…EVERYTHING is predictable based on prior causes… regardless of whatever ILLUSION people may have in their HEADS about how it FEELS like they’re making a free choice.  This can get pretty heavy. A hard determinist might tell someone who believes in libertarian free will…Let’s say that you ARE making free choices for second…the THOUGHTS that you’re having that you’re ostensibly CHOOSING between…those ARE NOT things that you are consciously producing…you’re not THINKING really hard, straining like hmmm I’m gonna generate some THOUGHTS about what’s going on right now…no, to a hard determinist, these thoughts are just ARISING, SEEMINGLY out of nowhere, and that’s BECAUSE they are GENERATED by every prior EXPERIENCE you’ve ever had filtered through whatever mental architecture you currently have. So at BEST you’re FREELY CHOOSING between thoughts that you’re NOT choosing…and more than LIKELY a hard determinist would argue…that VERY PROCESS of you SEEMING TO be able to MAKE A CHOICE…IS ALSO dictated by your prior experience and mental architecture. In fact this goes EVEN FURTHER. SOME hard determinists in the past have gone so far to make the claim… that hard determinism TAKEN to its logical ends…it’s not UNREASONABLE to |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-8|think that ONE DAY…the very idea of CHANCE…. altogether… may BECOME an outdated concept. That anything that SEEMS random to us right now… is really just a marker of something that we haven’t STUDIED enough yet to be able to understand all the causal mechanisms at work that determine what’s going to happen. And that given enough time…the idea of randomness could eventually be seen as a foreign CONCEPT in a hard determinist society. It’s interesting to imagine what it would FEEL like to LIVE in a world like that…and we’re gonna talk about what a hard deterministic society may LOOK like a little LATER on in the episode. But NOW that we’ve laid out the polar opposites of this free will determinism spectrum…I think it’s IMPORTANT…  for us to talk about ALL the shades of gray that lie in the middle.See because if you’re a hard determinist…free will CANNOT exist for your position to remain coherent. And if you’re a libertarian free will kind of person… then hard determinism can’t be true. So what you end up GETTING in the middle… are a LOT of theories that TRY to find ways to RECONCILE free will and determinism. Is it possible |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-9|…that reality is structured in such a way…where we OF COURSE are affected by outside factors, society, your parents, the media you consume, etc. But that at the same time at some OTHER level of your experience you REALLY ARE capable of freely choosing between multiple different options. Theories that land in this area of the spectrum are going to be known as COMPATIBILISM. And at the RISK of sounding redundant here REMEMBER…a COMPATIBILIST DOESN’T NEED TO BELIEVE in free will in the sense that you’re FREELY CHOOSING ALL your actions…their job is to figure out to what EXTENT are you free? What specific PORTION of our thinking or our minds…are ACTUALLY MAKING free choices? It doesn’t need to be ALL or NOTHING. Answering these questions becomes one of the main CHALLENGES of the work of a compatibilist. And what you’ll SEE if you read the STORY over the centuries of people making PROGRESS in the area of free will is that a LOT of the progress that is made…comes about because people are being more RIGOROUS about how we DEFINE free will, they’re getting a more and more nuanced understanding of what specific parts of our behavior we’re TALKING about when |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-10|we claim to be making a free choice. Let me give a very broad strokes overview of how this has typically GONE. You know, back thousands of years ago the conversations people were having about freedom… were MORE centered around something like freedom of ACTION. The basic idea was: what does it mean to be free? Well… that simply means…that you DO the things that you want to do! But it’s NOT LONG before people realize that that definition’s  incomplete. For example, if somebody has a GUN to your head and is FORCING you to do things…technically, you don’t WANT to die so you WANT to do the things the gunman’s telling you to DO…but at the same time…that’s not your FREE CHOICE that’s going on there, you’re being HEAVILY coerced from the outside. So when it comes to moral accountability and how much we can BLAME someone for their actions either in a court of law or in our personal lives…obviously… we just, DON’T see somebody who has a gun to their head through the same lens of judgment. So a tempting place to GO from there is to say that an act of free will…is just when somebody DOES something that |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-11|they ACTUALLY want to be DOING… when there’s NOT a GUN to their head. But THAT definition starts to run into PROBLEMS for philosophers. For example, picture somebody who’s addicted to SMOKING. Now, nobody has a GUN to this person’s head. And they absolutely DO want to smoke a cigarette whenever they get a craving. But if we’re TALKING about the freedom to be able to make the choices that you want to make in life…it’s HARD to IGNORE the fact that this person has a very REAL physical dependency on the substance that’s IMPACTING the way they’re THINKING about it…in other words: their choices are being HEAVILY COERCED by this totally outside factor. The fact is: we SEE people who are ADDICTED to something… through a different lens of moral accountability than someone making that same decision who is NOT addicted. And how DIFFERENT that IS will come down to your OWN individual VIEWS on it…maybe it’s NOT that different to you, I’m a philosophy podcaster I’m not trying to make claims about addiction, the POINT here is to illustrate how this conversation about free will has EVOLVED over the years… and that if were going to examine and try to |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-12|get to the bottom of EXACTLY where our FREE CHOICE exists…these are THINGS we have to consider.So philosophers take a look at this and say well… maybe our WHOLE understanding of the free choices we’re making… is WAY OFF. Maybe we DON’T have freedom over what we WANT, like when you want a cigarette. In fact when you think about it you can WANT… a MILLION different things in your life… you can want mutually EXCLUSIVE things SIMULTANEOUSLY. Maybe what we have control over ISN’T what we want…but what we can WILL ourselves to do. The thinking is: you can only really have one will that you’re willing yourself to do in any one moment. Maybe THAT’S what we have control over. But freedom of the will just runs into a LOT of the same problems that the WANTS ran into. For example: how can you ever REALLY KNOW if the things you’re WILLING yourself to DO are things that you’re freely choosing? How can you know if your WILL isn’t being hijacked by social pressure, culture, media. Can we say that you’re FREE if you’re making a decision in the face of all that?And at THIS point I feel like |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-13|I have to bring up a THOUGHT that’s no doubt arising in some of your brains right about now. The thought is: oh, well I see what you’re doing here. You’re just gonna keep zooming out to less and less aggressive methods of influencing people’s behaviors and CONTINUE asking the question, well are are TRULY FREE if this OTHER thing is IMPACTING your behavior? But isn’t that what LIFE is…things IMPACT your BEHAVIOR! Under THAT line of thinking, taken far enough…can we EVER hold anyone accountable for ANYTHING they do? To which someone ENGAGING in this discussion might say back…yeah… EXACTLY! Look almost NOBODY out there wants a world where we CAN’T hold people accountable for the things that they do…so the question we're challenging and trying to get to the bottom of is WHEN SPECIFICALLY CAN we hold people accountable? What sorts of choices DO people have control over? Because as we’ve established we DON’T hold someone as accountable when they have a gun to their head. We don’t hold a GRIZZLY BEAR accountable on the same level as a human. Philosophers have tried to ANSWER these questions in recent years. Let’s give a couple examples. First up is a CLASSIC |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-14|from the work of a guy named Harry Frankfurt. And IF you’re GONNA be able to hang in one of these modern conversations about free will and determinism…you’re GOING to have to be familiar with the part of his work that talks about first and second order desires. People are gonna USE that terminology…it’s GOOD to know what it means. You can START with a basic question…what IS the difference between a, dog’s level of freedom and a human’s level of freedom? WHY DO we hold people more morally accountable than we do animals?Well lets THINK about it. What is it like when a DOG makes a decision? A DOG can do a lot of things. A dog can feel hungry. A dog can want to eat the food inside of its bowl. It can WILL itself to EAT the food INSIDE of the bowl. ALL of this you could think of as a sort of FIRST ORDER of desires that a dog OR a human may experience.But this is where we diverge…something WE can do…that it DOESN’T seem like a DOG’S ABLE to do…is that we have the ability to WISH we had OTHER DESIRES, than what we have. We |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-15|have a SECOND ORDER ability Frankfurt says, to REFLECT on the desires that we have in a moment…and then either WISH that we didn’t have a desire that we DO…or to WISH we had a DESIRE there that we DON’T actually have. Think of the smoker that is addicted to cigarettes, and then lives their life tortured WISHING that they WEREN’T the kind of person that wants to smoke so bad. Or the person that WISHES they WERE the kind of person that wanted to read books more often. THAT seems to be a level of reflection about our experience that a DOG is just not doing. I mean say what you want about the similarities between people and dogs…but there’s no DOG out there that’s saying to itself…what I WOULD GIVE…to NOT be the kind of dog that loves BACON so much. Somebody HELP ME here! Maybe the person addicted to smoking who SEES no problem with their behavior…IS FREE. Because their BEHAVIOR corresponds with their second order desire. They don’t WISH they were anything DIFFERENT than what they are. But maybe the person who’s addicted to smoking, that DOESN’T want to smoke anymore, and yet STILL DOES it every |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-16|single day, hating themselves, tortured inside, wishing they could stop but they CAN’T. Maybe THAT’S the person who isn’t free. Now it NEEDS to be said: in the work of Harry Frankfurt, these first and second order desires sometimes need to line up in ways that are pretty complicated given the circumstances you’re talking about. There’s a LOT more to it, highly recommend reading his work if you’re interested…but again the point here TODAY is to GIVE an example of how a compatibilist might try to offer an explanation for how free will and determinism can coexist. Even if the CONTENTS of every potential decision you’re making are ultimately generated outside of your conscious control…could it be that this SECOND ORDER level of reflection is the ONE location in our minds we ARE CAPABLE of CHOOSING between those different desires? Alternatively, could it be that the freedom we have at a conscious level is simply the ability to VETO decisions that are formulated at the unconscious level? Free WONT as the neuroscientist Benjamin Libet called it. REGARDLESS of whether ANY of these prove to be true or not…hopefully it’s clear that there is a considerable amount of work left to be done |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-17|in this area. We can’t PROVE that free will exists. We can’t PROVE that free will is an illusion. But let’s say that we COULD prove it for a second. Let’s say tomorrow neuroscientists and philosophers gathered together…they all ride their horses up to the top of a mountain. Sam Harris gets up on a boulder…he’s wearing the pelts o f several small rodents he’s slain in the woods around him and he says the age of free will is over…the age of causal determinism, shall now begin. HOW would our societies have to be restructured…if we could somehow verify that even though it may LOOK like people are making free decisions, even though it may FEEL LIKE IT to THEM…EVERYTHING that they’re doing is ultimately determined by a prior cause…how would it change the way that we SEE people in a hard determinist society?Now the OBVIOUS, FIRST thing that EVERYBODY talks about when they IMAGINE this sort of society…is that we’d probably have to make CONSIDERABLE changes to the way that we view criminal justice. The ENTIRE foundation of our criminal justice strategy HINGES on the fact that when somebody commits a crime…they had a choice… in some OTHER course |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-18|of events that COULD’VE occurred… to NOT commit that crime. But if we found out that when someone commits a crime…that they ACTUALLY, COULD NOT have chosen other than the way they did…CAN WE, IN THAT WORLD, IN GOOD CONSCIENCE, really lock people in prison for 20 years of their life… for carrying out a causal chain of events that they didn’t CHOOSE to be born into and had no real control over? Maybe in a society based on hard determinism criminal justice would be LESS about divvying out punishments designed to DETER bad decision making, and maybe the strategy would be MORE about rehabilitation or education. Maybe people would focus MORE on the causal mechanisms that eventually LEAD to criminal behavior…in childhood, in underserved communities, in the school system, maybe that society would try EVEN HARDER than we DO NOW, because they’d be forced to acknowledge that sitting around BLAMING people accomplishes nothing in a hard deterministic society.  And criminal justice, again, is a really interesting example that people will offer when talking about a society like this…but to ME…the MORE interesting things are the BROAD social implications of what we’re talking about here. In other words, it’s NOT JUST about criminal |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-19|justice…how do you create incentives, for ANYTHING… in a hard determinist society? Because this DOESN’T just apply to BAD behavior…how do you reward people for GOOD behavior? How do you justify PAYING someone three times as much as someone else, EVEN if they’re working three times as hard… if both people literally could not have chosen to do otherwise? How do you award scholarships to certain students over others? Think of how DIFFERENTLY… the outcomes of people’s lives turn out…think of varying levels of health and fulfillment, political representation… and think about how under hard determinism… those outcomes ultimately come down to being born into the right or wrong causal chain of events. How do you justify people being rewarded with such different lives when no one made a choice either way?Think of ANOTHER incentive structure that exists in the world now… that would be called into question: how about the very BASIC idea of when we say that someone is a good person or not? Can you even make the claim that someone is good or bad in this world? I mean that WHOLE value judgment is BASED on the fact that people can CHOOSE to make good or bad |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-20|decisions. Would people in a hard deterministic society see the act of sitting around BLAMING people, LABELING them as good or bad…would they SEE that as just a waste of time? Would there be more COMPASSION in a society like that…because there’d be a perspective shift from BLAMING people, to just trying harder to understand what is CAUSING a particular behavior? And that of course wouldn’t mean that there’s never times that you don’t want a particular person in the orbit of your life where their behavior negatively affects you…you might do that all the time…but that ritual of BLAMING the person…would all that seem pretty nostalgic from a hard deterministic point of view?Another example of something that might change…how about certain BUSINESS practices or MARKETING practices. How about those TEAMS of people on something like YouTube that sit around trying to come up with ways to KEEP people on the app for longer. How would we see them? These people are TRANSPARENTLY… using tendencies NOT ONLY in human psychology in a macro sense…but through algorithms they’re catering things to take advantage of YOUR PERSONAL tendencies to KEEP you scrolling, keep you spending your time looking at the spectacle, ALL for the |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-21|sake of generating the most profit. Now…people are okay with this in the CURRENT setup of our society. I mean the story is that if there’s ANYONE out there who’s wasting thousands of hours of their life on an app… and they have OTHER things in their life that they REALLY want to get done, but then they get sucked into this abyss everyday that feels incredibly hard to get out of…the story CURRENTLY is that that’s okay… because that person can always stop watching. They can always delete the app, be responsible, and get their life together. And for the record…that would STILL be TRUE in a deterministic society. But if everybody suddenly became a hard determinist…and people were AWARE of how the aggressive influences around us often LEAD people down roads where their life ends up being a mess. Would the public VIEW the people that are MAKING and PERFECTING these algorithms DIFFERENTLY? Would they see them as people that are manufacturing addiction? You know almost like if there was a chemist that creates a drug in a lab that’s specifically DESIGNED to be addictive to people, like the chemist makes it so that it TARGETS parts of the brain |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-22|that makes it WAY harder for people to stop…THAT person would be considered evil in our current setup. How about the people aggressively influencing behavior in other ways? Would the people MAKING the algorithms be prosecuted in that world? What would that prosecution even LOOK like given how criminal JUSTICE will have changed. Maybe it would be the content creators hacking people’s attention spans. Think of how often this stuff is used even on children. Anyway hopefully it’s evident at this point that if society underwent a massive shift where everything was structured around the precepts of hard determinism…LOT of stuff would have to change. And maybe to some of you these changes don’t really sound that bad at all…maybe you’d WANT society to move more in a hard determinist direction.But at the VERY least what I think ANYONE in this conversation HAS to concede is that if we ever went in that direction…we’d definitely be running some NEW experiments, that REALLY haven’t ever been TRIED at the largest scales of society. There’s no GUARANTEE something like this is gonna work. In fact another interesting ANGLE on all this is that there are people out there that argue…that if we WERE somehow |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-23|to ever be able to conclude that the universe was causally deterministic…that the BEST THING that we could DO, IN that SITUATION…would be to not tell anybody. They say it’s almost like if NASA found an asteroid that was gonna destroy all life on earth and there was nothing that ANYONE could ever do to stop it…should we tell the public? Similarly these people argue that every PIECE of the way we organize our societies is FOUNDED upon the idea… of moral accountability. What if this whole experiment doesn’t WORK without that ingredient? What if the best thing we could do… would be to let people keep on living BELIEVING that they have free will even if they don’t. Regardless of what you think the social policy should be…and REGARDLESS of what you think may be going on at the level of the universe…we’re ALL ultimately responsible, for a totally separate endeavor, which is coming up with a PERSONAL policy about how we’re going to view stuff in our OWN lives. A passage from William James comes to mind when I think about this, he has a GREAT essay called the dilemma of determinism (1884)…and IN IT he talks about how you |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-24|can view the ENTIRE history of the world, EVERYTHING that has EVER happened, THROUGH the lens of both determinism AND free will. You can SEE history, as the intersection of MILLIONS of free acting, moral agents, all making decisions, working together, those decisions colliding with each other sometimes in EXTREMELY violent ways over the years. You can SEE it THAT way…OR you can see history as a chain of causally related events, all unfolding based on a predictable ORDER that’s written into the structure of the universe and into human psychology. But he says REGARDLESS of how you view HISTORY…to WILLIAM JAMES…there is only ONE rational way to be looking at the FUTURE. And that is under the PRAGMATIC assumption… that you DO HAVE free will. He famously says that my first act of free will shall be to BELIEVE in free will. And I think no matter WHAT you do when you’re deciding where you’re gonna land on all this when it comes to your personal life…I think it’s important to remember that there’s definitely DOWNSIDES to being TOO extreme into one camp or another. What I mean is if you lean too far in the direction of free will…then |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g-25|you run the risk of becoming someone that sits around BLAMING yourself all the time, hating on decisions that you should or shouldn’t have made in moments in the past…but if you lean to far in the direction of determinism…you run the risk of EXTERNALIZING everything, NEVER taking accountability for yourself and really just becoming a victim. Maybe there’s a case to be made EVEN if you’re a hard determinist when it comes to the universe…maybe there’s a case to be made for being a compatibilist when it comes to your relationship to yourself.That said I want to close today by giving ONE MORE EXAMPLE of something that may change if we were living in a hard determinist society…and I waited until the end here because it has to do with conversations about AI…which the next two episodes of the show will be going into pretty heavily. Artificial Intelligence… gives us a pretty unique perspective, on free will. And it’s a perspective that I DON’T THINK humanity has had DIRECTLY available until VERY recently. When you look at something like a self driving car. That car…and the artificial intelligence that navigates it…from an ignorant, total OUTSIDERS perspective…that car APPEARS to be making |2023-11-28T20:13:01.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-47g5g|182|Episode #182 - What if free will is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-0|  So throughout the last couple episodes we’ve been doing on the philosophy of mind…there’s been an IDEA that we’ve referenced MULTIPLE TIMES… and really just glossed over it as something, that’s PRACTICALLY self evident. The idea… is that when we THINK about consciousness… we can SPLIT it into two different types…there’s ACCESS consciousness on the one hand… and PHENOMENAL consciousness on the other. This is what we’ve been saying. When it comes to ACCESS consciousness…that’s stuff we CAN explain with neuroscience things like memories, information processing, our field of visual awareness…we can CLEARLY EXPLAIN a bit about how all THAT stuff works.But in this conversation so far, what KEEPS on being said… is that what we CAN’T SEEM to explain…is PHENOMENAL consciousness…you know, the subjective experience, that UNDERLIES conscious thought. That it FEELS like something to be me. There’s this idea…that this phenomenal consciousness is something separate…something fundamental, something in a category ALL IT’S OWN… that needs to be explained. You can explain a lot of stuff about access consciousness…but you can’t explain PHENOMENAL consciousness. But if you were a good materialist listening to the discussions on this series so far…and you’re sitting in the back of the room, being SUPER |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-1|PATIENT, NOT SAYING ANYTHING trying to be respectful to all the other ideas being presented…maybe there’s a part of you so far that’s just been BOILING inside, because you’re waiting for the part of the show where we’re ACTUALLY going to call that GIANT assumption that’s being made into question. Because a materialist might say, SURE…phenomenal consciousness is PRETTY mysterious and all. But DOES that necessarily mean that it’s something that NEEDS a further explanation? This is a good question. What is the difference… between EXPLAINING ALL of the component PARTS of our subjective experience again the thoughts, memories, information processing…what’s the difference between explaining all that and explaining phenomenal consciousness… in itself? Like what does that even mean?That’s kinda like you saying…well… you can EXPLAIN the delicious waffle cone. You can EXPLAIN the creamy chocolatey goodness inside, you can EXPLAIN the RAINBOW colored SPRINKLES. But you CAN’T explain the ICE CREAM CONE…in ITSELF, now can you? I mean at a CERTAIN point what are we even talking about anymore? IS phenomenal consciousness REALLY something that’s ENTIRELY SEPARATE that needs to be explained? Maybe, it DOESN’T need to be explained. Maybe phenomenal consciousness is less a thing in itself…and MORE a sort of ATTRIBUTION |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-2|we make… about a particular INTERSECTION of those component parts that we CAN study and explain. Now obviously there’s a bit to clarify there… and going over some popular arguments as to why that might be the case will take a good portion of the episode here today. But maybe a good place to start is to ask the question…if the hard problem of consciousness is to be able to explain why it FEELS like something to be me…and your SOLUTION to that is that maybe we don’t even need to explain that. One thing you’re gonna HAVE to explain no matter what… is why it SEEMS to MOST people living in today’s world…that phenomenal consciousness IS something that needs to be explained. Right before we began this series we did an episode on Susan Sontag and the power of the metaphors we casually use in conversations. And we talked about how these metaphors ACTUALLY go on to have a pretty huge impact on the way we contextualize the things in our lives. Well the philosopher Susan Blackmore, and apparently… I ONLY cover female philosophers by the name of Susan or Simone on this show…but anyway SUSAN BLACKMORE, huge player in these modern |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-3|conversations about the mysteries of consciousness…and she thinks that if it’s DIFFICULT for someone to wrap their brain around the idea that phenomenal consciousness is NOT something that is conceptually distinct…it MAY BE because of the METAPHORS about consciousness that we use in everyday conversation that are directing the way you THINK about consciousness… into a particular lane that’s incorrect.  For example, there’s a way people think about consciousness… that’s TRAGICALLY common in today’s world…it’s become known as the Cartesian theater. So Cartesian obviously referring to Descartes. And when Descartes arrives at his substance dualism where the MIND is something ENTIRELY SEPARATE from the BODY…this EVENT in the history of philosophy goes on to CHANGE the way that people start to see their conscious experience. They start to think… well what I am…is I’m this conscious creature, sort of perched up here inside of this head…and I’m essentially…sitting in a theater, LOOKING OUT through a set of eyes which are kind of like the screen in a theater…and on the screen what I SEE is the outside world. Now nobody ACTUALLY believes this is what is happening. Every person on this god forsaken planet KNOWS that there isn’t a movie theater up |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-4|in their heads. But hearing and using this metaphor DOES SHADE the way that they see their own conscious experience. The casual use of the metaphor… ALLOWS people to smuggle in assumptions about their subjective experience, that we REALLY have no evidence to be assuming. For example, when the mind and body is totally separate…maybe it becomes EASIER for people to believe that they’re a SPIRIT that’s INHABITING a body. Maybe it just makes it easier for people to VIEW their subjective, phenomenal consciousness as something SEPARATE from the body that needs to be explained in itself. WHATEVER IT IS though…the point to Susan Blackmore is that metaphors you use have an IMPACT on your intuitions about consciousness. And she thinks there’s several OTHER examples that fall into the very same CATEGORY as the Cartesian Theater.   How about the idea that there’s a unified, single, STREAM of consciousness that you’re experiencing. The STREAM being the metaphor there. Susan Blackmore asks is a SINGLE, unified STREAM, REALLY the way that you experience your conscious thought? Like when you REALLY pay attention is that how you’re existing?She says most likely the only reason people SEE their consciousness in terms of a stream…is because of |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-5|the specific way that people are often asked to OBSERVE their own consciousness. There’s a BIAS built into the way that we’re checking in. How do people typically do it? Well they’ll take a moment…they’ll stop what they’re doing…and they’ll ask themselves: what does it feel like to be ME right now. They’ll pay attention, they’ll listen, they’ll try to come up with an answer to the question…and they’ll realize that there’s a PARTICULAR set of thoughts, feelings and perceptions that it FEELS like, to be YOU in THAT moment. But then that person can wait for an hour…come back later, and ask the very SAME QUESTION in a different moment: what does it feel like to be me right now…and low and behold a totally DIFFERENT set of thoughts, feelings and perceptions come up. And then what we OFTEN DO as people at that point… is we FILL IN that empty space between those two moments with some ethereal STREAM of consciousness that we assume MUST HAVE existed between the two. But at some OTHER level…RATIONALLY we KNOW…that for the whole time that we WEREN’T doing this accounting of what it FEELS like to be me…we KNOW that there were TONS of |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-6|different unconscious meta-processes going on…all doing their own things, sometimes interacting with each other, most of the time not. We KNOW that our EXPERIENCE of consciousness is just directing our attention to one PIECE of our mental activity or another… and that all those pieces of mental activity KEEP on operating whether we’re FOCUSING on one of them or not. So is there a specific LOCATION where there’s some sort of collective STREAM where all of this stuff is bound together HOLISTICALLY? Is there ANY good reason to ASSUME that it NEEDS to BE that way? Could it be that the continuity of this mental activity is more of an ILLUSION… than it is a reality?And if this sounds impossible at first…think of OTHER illusions that we KNOW go on in the brain. Think of how any SINGLE sector of the brain CREATES a similar sort of illusion. Memories. We KNOW that DIFFERENT parts of the brain are responsible for different types of memory. Semantic memory in the frontal cortex, episodic memory in the hippocampus, procedural memory in the cerebellum. ALL of these different areas work together in concert with each other, it’s ALL seemingly unified. When someone cuts me off in |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-7|traffic and I’m choosing a reaction…I don’t CONSCIOUSLY, travel down to my cerebellum and say hey 200 million years ago how did my lizard grandfather react when a lizard cut him off in traffic…no MULTIPLE different parts of the brain work together and create an ILLUSION of continuity. And the SAME thing goes for our VISUAL experience of the world. The SAME thing happens with our emotions. Here’s Susan Blackmore saying: the traditional METAPHORS that we casually throw around about consciousness…even with just a LITTLE bit of careful observation of your own experience…being someone up in a theater in your head with a unified, continuous STREAM of your own consciousness…this ISN’T even how our experiences SEEM. Now it should be said if you were sufficiently COMMITTED to the process…you could ABSOLUTELY carry on in life with a complete LACK of self awareness fueled by the METAPHORS of pop-psychology and MOVIES and TV shows, and you could DEFINITELY LIVE in a state of illusion about it. But that DOESN’T make it right…and what happens she asks when those METAPHORS go on to impact the way we conduct science or break things down philosophically? She says:“Neuroscience and disciplined introspection give the same answer: there |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-8|are multiple parallel processes with no clear distinction between conscious and unconscious ones. Consciousness is an attribution we make, not a property of only some special events or processes. Notions of the stream, contents, continuity and function of consciousness are all misguided as is the search for the neural correlates of consciousness.”The MORE you think about the ILLUSIONS that our brains create for the sake of simplicity…the more the question starts to emerge: what if there is no CENTRALIZED HEADQUARTERS of the brain where the subjective experience of YOU…is being produced? What if consciousness…is an emergent property that exists…ONLY, when there is a VERY SPECIFIC organization of physical systems? There are people that believe that phenomenal consciousness… is an ILLUSION, they’re often called Illusionists…and what someone like THAT may say is sure, fully acknowledge there are other theories about what may ultimately explain phenomenal consciousness…but isn’t it ALSO, ENTIRELY POSSIBLE…that what it FEELS like to be YOU…is an illusion created by several, distributed processes of the brain running in parallel? Multiple different channels, exerting simultaneous influence on a variety of subsystems of the brain. That these subsystems talk to each other, they compete with each other, they ebb and flow between various |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-9|states of representation. But that these different DRAFTS of cognitive processes come together, to create a type of simplification of what’s going on in aggregate… and that simplification is what YOU experience as… YOU. I mean we have our five senses that help us map the EXTERNAL world and they do so in a way that is often crude and incomplete. Could it be… that we SIMILARLY… have a crude misrepresentation of our own brain activity that SIMILARLY, allows us to be able to function efficiently as a person? If you were looking for another METAPHOR to apply here that an illusionist might say is probably better for people to think of themselves in terms of… because its not gonna lead us down that rabbit hole of the cartesian theater…its to THINK of phenomenal CONSCIOUSNESS…as being SIMILAR to a USER INTERFACE or a DESKTOP on a computer. The idea is: what IS the desktop of a computer? Well its a bunch of simplified ICONS on a screen, that allow you to essentially manipulate the ELECTRICAL VOLTAGE going on in between transistors on computer hardware. But AS you’re pushing buttons to CHANNEL this electricity, getting things DONE on the computer…you don’t ACTUALLY need to |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-10|know ANYTHING ABOUT the complex inner workings of how the software and hardware are operating.The philosopher Daniel Dennett INTRODUCES the metaphor here in his famous book called Consciousness Explained (1991). He says:“When I interact with the computer, I have limited access to the events occurring within it. Thanks to the schemes of presentation devised by the programmers, I am treated to an elaborate audiovisual metaphor, an interactive drama acted out on the stage of keyboard, mouse, and screen. I, the User, am subjected to a series of benign illusions: I seem to be able to move the cursor (a powerful and visible servant) to the very place in the computer where I keep my file, and once that I see that the cursor has arrived ‘there’, by pressing a key I get it to retrieve the file, spreading it out on a long scroll that unrolls in front of a window (the screen) at my command. I can make all sorts of things happen inside the computer by typing in various commands, pressing various buttons, and I don’t have to know the details; I maintain control by relying on my understanding of the detailed audiovisual metaphors provided by the User |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-11|illusion.”So if we take this metaphor seriously…then the idea that you are some sort of privileged observer of everything that’s going on in your mind…that starts to seem like it’s just FALSE. To Daniel Dennett…we don’t know what’s REALLY happening at the deepest levels of our brains…we only know what SEEMS to be happening. We are constantly acting in certain ways, doing things…and then AFTER the fact making up reasons for why we ACTED in the way that we did.Point is: you don’t need to know EVERYTHING that’s going on at EVERY LEVEL of a computer… to be able to for example, drag a file that you don’t need anymore into the trash can on your desktop. You just drag the file into the trash can on this convenient, intuitive SCREEN. In fact you could make the argument that KNOWING about all the information being processed at other levels would get in the way of you being able to get things done that are USEFUL.But… as its been said many times before…to RELATE this back to our subjective experience of consciousness…to an ILLUSIONIST… we have to acknowledge the fact…that there is NO MORE… a TRASH CAN inside of your computer |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-12|screen…as there is a separate PHENOMENAL SUBJECT inside of your brain that needs to be explained. THAT…is an ILLUSION. What you HAVE… Daniel Dennett refers to as an EDITED DIGEST, of events that are going on inside your brain. So again just to clarify…an ILLUSIONIST… doesn’t DOUBT the existence of access consciousness, they’re not saying that the OUTSIDE WORLD is an illusion… No, just the phenomenal REPRESENTATION of brain activity…just the subjective YOU that experiences the world phenomenologically.The philosopher Keith Frankish gives the example of a television set to describe the type of illusion they’re talking about. He says: “Think of watching a movie. What your eyes are actually witnessing is a series of still images rapidly succeeding each other. But your visual system represents these images as a single fluid moving image. The motion is an illusion. Similarly, illusionists argue, your introspective system misrepresents complex patterns of brain activity as simple phenomenal properties. The phenomenality is an illusion.”When it FEELS LIKE SOMETHING to be you…these phenomena are “metaphorical representations” of REAL neural events that are going on…and they definitely help us navigate reality…they definitely ARE useful… but nothing about those phenomena… offer ANY sort of deep insight into the processes involved |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-13|to produce that experience. So in THAT sense, they are an illusion. And Daniel Dennett goes HARD on ANYONE trying to smuggle in ANY MORE MAGIC than needs to be brought in to EXPLAIN consciousness. He wrote a GREAT entry in the journal of consciousness studies in 2016 called Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness. Now what’s he GETTING at with that title? Why should consciousness being an ILLUSION… be the DEFAULT theory we should all START from? Well he COMPARES the possibility of consciousness being an illusion…with ANOTHER kind of illusion. The kind of illusion that you’d see in VEGAS at a MAGIC show. Because what HAPPENS at a MAGIC show? Well there are GREAT efforts MADE by the magician you’re watching…to TRICK you into thinking that what you’re seeing is real. You’re watching the magic show from a VERY specific point of view…CAREFULLY selected by the magician to LIMIT the information you have. They got lights and smoke and music to DISTRACT you, they’re usually wearing some kind of bedazzled, cowboy costume looks like they got it at spirit Halloween, their poor assistant is dressed in God knows what to distract you. And when they DO the trick and the ILLUSION |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-14|is finally COMPLETE…and you’re sitting there AMAZED, WONDERING as to how they defied the laws of nature and actually sawed someone in half and put them back together in front of you…imagine someone in the crowd writing a REVIEW of the show the next day and saying, welp…I guess EVERYTHING we KNOW about science needs to be rethought…I mean this man is CLEARLY a wizard…he is CLEARLY outside the bounds of natural constraints that we THOUGHT existed…it’s time to RETHINK our ENTIRE theoretical model.Daniel Dennett says who would EVER TAKE that person seriously? They’d be laughed off the internet if they wrote that. And RIGHTFULLY SO. And SIMILARLY when it comes to these modern conversations about consciousness…why would we EVER assume that our entire theoretical MODEL is flawed? Why would we ASSUME the supernatural? Why wouldn’t we assume that anything that seems magical or mysterious definitely HAS a natural explanation…and that we just don’t understand it yet? If you ONLY saw a magic trick from a single angle, like sitting in the audience of a theater…it would be silly for us to assume that there wasn’t a different perspective available that would SHOW how the trick was done. Similarly… we ONLY |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-15|REALLY SEE the qualia of our subjective experience from the angle of introspection. This is why to daniel dennett…the DEFAULT position we should be starting from…the MOST parsimonious explanation for a mystery that contradicts everything else we know…is that it’s an illusion. It’s funny because it’s an argument that’s coming from a place that’s SIMILAR to where a panpsychist may be coming from, but it’s arriving at a totally different conclusion. Panpsychist might say that we don’t yet know enough about the human brain to write OFF the possibility that consciousness exists at some level underneath. Here’s an illusionist position that’s saying, yeah, we certainly HAVEN’T been doing science long enough to know EVERYTHING about the brain…and think of all the low hanging fruit in the sciences that could potentially EXPLAIN this mystery if only we have more time to study it. More than that…to an illusionist…maybe there is something ABOUT the nature of the illusion that we’re experiencing, that is NOT fully explainable by studying the physical properties of the brain. Maybe studying the ILLUSION ITSELF… is where we should be focusing more of our attention. But that said…there’s no shortage of people out there that have PROBLEMS with saying consciousness is an |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-16|illusion. For example… the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, who by the way fun trivia fact is the only person OTHER than phillip goff that we’ve ever interviewed on this show all the way back in our HUME series…anyway HE once wrote an article where he talks about how Illusionism…AS an ANSWER to the hard problem of consciousness…is something that HE thinks HEAVILY relies on the specific definition you’re using of what an ILLUSION is or what CONSCIOUSNESS is. To explain what he means… let’s go back to the metaphor about the icons on the computer screen. Massimo Pigliucci says this metaphor that Daniel Dennett presents in Consciousness Explained…is a POWERFUL metaphor when it comes to describing the relationship between phenomenal consciousness… and the underlying neural machinery that makes it possible. It’s great. But what HE can’t seem to understand is why ANYONE would EVER CALL what’s going ON there…an “illusion”? Why USE the word illusion? When you hear the word illusion he says… you think of mind trickery, smoke and mirrors. But that’s not what’s happening when it comes to the user interface of a computer. He says, “computer icons, cursors and so forth are not illusions, they are causally efficacious representations… of |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-17|underlying machine language processes.” What he’s getting at… is that there’s no ILLUSION going on here. There IS a connection between the underlying processes of the brain and our phenomenal experience of it. If it were truly an illusion, there would BE no real connection. But he says if you wanted to use that same logic…would you say that the wheel of your CAR is an illusion? I mean when you’re driving down the road and you turn the wheel…you’re not aware of the complexity of everything the car is doing, all of the internal communication going on to be able to turn the car in whatever direction you’re going. Does that make it an illusion when you turn the steering wheel left and everything moves that makes the car go left? No, the steering wheel is causally connected to the underlying machinery… and that steering wheel makes it POSSIBLE for you to actually be able to drive the car efficiently. So why would you ever choose the word ILLUSION… to describe… what’s going ON there? Massimo Pigliucci thinks there’s an easy trap for someone to fall into living in today’s world…he calls it a sort of reductionist temptation…we come from a |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-18|LONG HISTORY in the sciences of progressively reducing things to a deeper, more fundamental level of their component parts… and then the assumption has usually been that if you can find a lower level of description about something…for example if we can explain what PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS is, with a neurobiological explanation…well then THAT explanation, must be MORE TRUE than anything going on at a more macro level…at the level of the consciousness we experience every day. It must be a more FUNDAMENTAL explanation, and therefore a BETTER explanation. You’ll see this same kind of thinking going on when someone assumes the atoms that MAKE UP an apple… are more REAL in some sense than the apple in macroscopic reality…the assumption being that the apple as WE experience it is some kind of an illusion created by our flawed SENSES and that it’s somehow less valuable.  But this whole way of thinking…is UNWORKABLE he says. We’ve learned over the course of THOUSANDS of years of trying to STUDY the things around us…that different levels of description… are USEFUL for different purposes. He gives a series of examples: he says, “If we are interested in the biochemistry of the brain, then the proper level of |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-19|description is the subcellular one, taking lower levels (eg, the quantum one) as background conditions. If we want a broader picture of how the brain works, we need to move up to the anatomical level, which takes all previous levels, from the subcellular to the quantum one, as background conditions. But if we want to talk to other human beings about how we feel and what we are experiencing, then it is the psychological level of description (the equivalent of Dennett’s icons and cursors) that, far from being illusory, is the most valuable.”Reality plays by different sets of rules at different scales. And different SCALES of reality are USEFUL for different types of inquiry. When you’re going about your everyday life do you assume that the ground is solid? Or do you use the lower level of description at the atomic level where the ground is really 99.9% empty space?So when it comes to consciousness…if we’re gonna SAY that a neurobiological description of what’s going on invalidates the experience of what’s going on at the level of subjectivity, that subjectivity is nothing but an illusion…then why stop at the neurobiological level he says? Why not say that neurons are actually |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-20|an illusion because they’re ultimately made up of molecules? Why not say that MOLECULES are illusions because they’re really made up of quarks and gluons. You can do this INFINITELY. And maybe on a more GENERAL note…JUST when it comes to this lifelong process of trying to be as clear thinking of a human being as you possibly CAN be…maybe part of that whole process… is accepting the fact that there is no, single, monistic way of analyzing reality that is the ULTIMATE METHOD of understanding it. Maybe understanding reality… just takes a more pluralistic approach, maybe GETTING as close to the truth as we can as people takes LOOKING at reality from many different angles at many different scales, and maybe phenomenal consciousness is an important scale of reality… that we need to be considering. So from Daniel Dennett and Keith Frankish offering a take on HOW consciousness might be an illusion…to Susan Blackmore offering a take on WHY the illusion of consciousness is such an easy trap to FALL into…I think if anyone you’re in a conversation with calls themselves an illusionist…then unless you’re talking to David Copperfield I think you’ll at LEAST be able to understand the main reasons |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g-21|for why someone may THINK this way about consciousness. And this is the point in the conversation where we hit a bit of a crossroads…SAME crossroads that we’ve seen with OTHER theories of consciousness in the series so far. At a certain point...there are GOOD reasons to believe that phenomenal consciousness may be an illusion…and there are good reasons to DOUBT whether that is true or not. As we’ve talked about at a certain point with these conversations you just have to CHOOSE to believe in something, and then deal with the prescriptive implications of BELIEVING it after the fact…and one of the ones with Illusionism in particular is you can start to wonder, the more you think about it, how much consciousness being an illusion, ACTUALLY has an impact on ANYTHING going on in your everyday life or your relationship to society. It’s actually pretty interesting to consider…how much the possibility of consciousness being an illusion…DIRECTLY MIRRORS, OTHER, unsolved conversations in the philosophy of mind more broadly. Like for example…the ongoing debate about whether FREE WILL is an illusion. In fact in order to be able to talk about the societal impacts of consciousness being an illusion we have to talk about |2023-06-26T03:09:18.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-td63g|181|Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-0|  So we talked about some general DISCUSSION surrounding consciousness last time. Let’s TALK about some actual THEORIES now. IF you’re born into TODAY’S day and age…STATISTICALLY…the MOST likely thing you’re PROBABLY going to be when it comes to your thoughts about consciousness…is some version of a physicalist or a materialist. Meaning that you believe… that consciousness… is PROBABLY reducible to material, PHYSICAL properties of the brain. Usually that would mean you’re a PRETTY big fan of science. Usualyl that would mean that… you’d probably BE the kind of person that SAYS stuff like…I think, one day… we’re PROBABLY going to find, that there are some INTERNAL mechanisms that are going on in the brain… that if only we study them enough…let’s be REAL…we’re PROBABLY gonna be able to know.. everything about consciousness one day.And if you said something like that…NOBODY in their right mind would be MAD at you for it. They may disagree with you but they’d understand the world you’re coming from. I mean picture being born into the middle ages somewhere in western Europe and NOT being a Christian. At some level we’re all BYPRODUCTS of the cultures and time periods that we come from…and SCIENCE…it’s just |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-1|how you GET THINGS DONE these days! When you got a problem…SCIENCE is what you THROW at it to figure it out. And WHY would consciousness be any different we gotta assume?But there’s something ELSE we ALWAYS DO these days… on ACCOUNT of the fact we lovescience so much (southern?)…and THAT IS when we’re DOING science…we LOVE to construct theoretical models that HELP us understand reality. AS A SCIENTIST…at least whenever I hear from scientists that are IN MY LIFE…as a scientist you TRY to construct a MODEL that is SIMPLE enough to explain the problem that you’re trying to deal with. You TRY to be parsimonious. No more SIMPLE than it needs to be, no more COMPLICATED than it needs to be. That’s an example of a SOLID…theoretical model.   And maybe a PARTICULAR theoretical MODEL…works out GREAT. Maybe so far it explains 98% of all the PHENOMENA that are OUT there that you’re studying. Amazing. But when something’s worked out SO WELL…FOR SO LONG…a very TEMPTING thing to do… when that last 2% CAN’T seem to be explained in the theory, something like consciousness in TODAY’S world…a TEMPTING thing to do… is to STICK with the model overall…but then TRY to |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-2|TACK ON a bunch of ADDITIONAL things that can EXPLAIN AWAY that last two percent. You can understand why people DO this…you know we’re so close! Just look at it! 98%! Sometimes it can be DIFFICULT when it’s worked out for so long to think that the PROBLEM… MAY have been ALL THE WAY back with assumptions that we made at the BEGINNING of the theoretical model. Well what if THIS were the case…WHAT IF…when it comes to the HARD PROBLEM of consciousness that we talked about LAST time…what if the reason…it’s been SO HARD to explain CONSCIOUSNESS USING the current scientific model…is because a LONG TIME AGO…consciousness…was REMOVED from the SCIENCES so that we could better compartmentalize and narrow our focus?This line of thinking is EVENTUALLY going to lead us to a theory of consciousness known…as Panpsychism. You can just LOOK at the two parts of the word Pan and psychism and venture a pretty good guess as to where we’re GOING with all this. But something I want to make sure I say right at the outset here is that the Panpsychism I’m talking about today is not…your DAD’s Panpsychism…where he has one too many mocktails and starts talking about how |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-3|the trees are watching him or how EVERYTHING is conscious. There are VERY FEW, SERIOUS people doing work that are REALLY making a claim like that. I’m more interested in NOT wasting your time talking about those today and talking about what I see as more of a good faith Panpsychism that has been gaining a LOT of popularity as of late in these conversations in the philosophy of mind we’re going to be orbiting around for a bit. Now with the intelligent brand of Panpsychism that I’m talking about here in particular… if there was a MOUNT RUSHMORE of panpsychism…one of the FACES on that mountain would be a philosopher by the name of Phillip Goff. And to get us STARTED on understanding where a PANPSYCHIST view of consciousness may be coming from: Phillip Goff in 2019 wrote a book called Galileo’s Error…where in it: he talks about what HE thinks is a FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE in the THEORETICAL models we USE to understand our reality. And it’s a mistake… that MAY have made science, in it’s CURRENT state, INCAPABLE of ever being able to explain consciousness fully. So how exactly did that happen? Well Goff says that a LONG time ago, Galileo…OBVIOUSLY |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-4|known for all the work he got done in the sciences…was ALSO someone doing philosophical work. And Galileo was DOING his work during a time where a lot of people that came before him believed that the THINGS that we’re looking at IN the physical world…are full of qualities. For example Goff says…COLORS… people thought were on the SURFACES of the objects that we see…SMELLS they thought were FLOATING through the AIR…TASTES are INSIDE of the food that you are eating. These things are called QUALITIES…and these things PRODUCE what we call our QUALITATIVE experience of the world. OK. But then Galileo says…how about we start from an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT theoretical model. Because as we know NOW in 2023…his ULTIMATE goal was that he wanted to be able to understand PHYSICAL reality SOLELY through the language of mathematics. He thought, you know, if you wanted to be able to understand something PURELY quantitative, JUST PHYSICAL reality…descriptions of things like size, shape, motion… particles, fields, and all the various dispositions of those particles and fields…if you wanted to try to understand all THAT…mathematics, SEEMS, like a PRETTY promising direction to go in to be able to explain them. But as Phillip Goff says |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-5|in the book this becomes a PROBLEM for Galileo…because there’s no way that an EQUATION…can ever capture something like the REDNESS of a RED experience. There’s no blue + yellow = red. When you TASTE something…there’s obviously no mathematical structure in the universe that can represent, how spicy curry tastes. That’s a QUALITATIVE experience. And Galileo KNEW this. So what Galileo HAD TO DO…to be able to GET to the basis of mathematical physics in 1623…is he had to effectively CUT OUT… QUALITATIVE experiences from what the theoretical model was trying to understand. And then to EXPLAIN the QUALITIES…he says that WHAT we experience when we see, smell or touch something…is NOT INSIDE of the objects somehow…to Galileo, those qualities ACTUALLY take place, in the MIND of the observer…so we gotta get RID of the qualitative realm of consciousness…and STICK… with the QUANTITATIVE realm of science. Put another way, his view of reality meant that we had to CUT OUT subjective experience from what science was trying to understand…and STICK WITH things like particles, fields, mass and charge…you know, the things that we are all very FAMILIAR with that science tries to study and understand today. What resulted from all this Goff says |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-6|is that the physics we have today primarily explains the way that physical stuff BEHAVES. It doesn’t tell us ANYTHING at ALL… about the nature of the matter in ITSELF. Physics… doesn’t tell us what matter IS…it only tell us what it DOES. And by the way Phillip Goff is FAR from the ONLY one saying this. This has been well documented all throughout the history of philosophy. When you’re doing science… if you’re studying volcanoes for example…you’re interested in how the volcano BEHAVES…you’re studying volcanic gas emissions, you’re studying seismic activity, you’re studying the way that it erupts…what do YOU care about the INTRINSIC NATURE of that volcano…what are you gonna marry it? No, you’re JUST trying to understand how it behaves. And COMPARTMENTALIZING our focus like this has obviously been very helpful from VOLCANOES…all the way down into the realm of physics. The progress speaks for itself. But Phillip Goff would say it is NOT a coincidence…that IF we FIND ourselves in a time where this purely QUANTITATIVE theoretical model has done so much good for us…oh, but then there’s this one little thing at the end…CONSCIOUSNESS…that it CAN’T seem to explain. That’s NOT REALLY a coincidence. It’s NOT that we need |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-7|to TACK ON some MORE STUFF to EXPLAIN that 2% that’s left over at the end. To Phillip Goff: Mathematical physics has BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL…PRECISELY BECAUSE it STARTED from a place… where it EXCLUDED consciousness. It may be helpful at this point and for the rest of the episode… for us to consider an alternative timeline of philosophical events in the past. I mean imagine if back in the time of Galileo…Galileo comes up with this PURELY quantitative method of understanding reality…and then he goes to his scientist and philosopher friends and says here you go guys, this is my new theory. And imagine they LOOK at it… but after thinking about it for a while they’re like no, Galileo. What have you done? You’ve STRIPPED the world of its qualities. Look, this theory you’ve come up with doesn’t ACCOUNT for the OBVIOUS existence of the DETAILS of subjective, phenomenal consciousness. Imagine they say it’s PRETTY good…but AS good scientists we can’t IGNORE this GIANT, self-evident PIECE of human reality called consciousness…that may be the most OBVIOUS thing that we know exists…we can DO BETTER than this. And imagine Galileo…STILL committed to mathematical physics as BEING the best path forward…imagine he goes back |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-8|to the drawing board…what do you think the theory that he returned with would’ve LOOKED like…if he LEFT room for consciousness?Well Panpsychism is DEFINITELY…one possible answer to this. See you hear the name Panpsychism and you might think that most of these people are saying something magical. But again a SERIOUS Panpsychist is NOT someone that believes that EVERYTHING AROUND YOU is conscious. Like your lamp is conscious, it’s WATCHING you. Your flip flops are conscious and they’re watching… your feet. It’s not like that. Panpsychists are not ENEMIES of science, or of ANYTHING mathematical physics has discovered so far. They just think that physical science… DOESN’T reveal EVERYTHING there is to KNOW about physical reality…because it’s BASED on a theoretical METHOD that’s purely QUANTITATIVE. They think we need to find a way to BRING CONSCIOUSNESS BACK IN to the models we use. So, it’s actually quite the contrary…a panpsychist is typically trying to find a way to PRESERVE the work that’s been done in mathematical physics… by finding a way to incorporate what THEY think we left out at the beginning. And one way to DO that… if that’s what you wanted to do…would be to imagine consciousness… as something that is |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-9|fundamental, and ubiquitous…something that lies UNDERNEATH… physical matter as we know it. Imagine, at the fundamental level of reality…there are JUST, NETWORKS… of very SIMPLE, conscious entities. These conscious entities go ALL THE WAY DOWN, that’s the term philosophers like to USE in these conversations…they go ALL THE WAY DOWN… to EVEN something like an electron or a quark…that these VERY simple types of entities… have a very SIMPLE type… of internal experience. Imagine that’s possible. Now…couple things real quick…OBVIOUSLY we gotta be careful at EVERY STAGE of this conversation about consciousness of PROJECTING OUR OWN, HUMAN type of subjectivity onto the definition of what it is to have an internal experience… OBVIOUSLY these subatomic particles would have a very DIFFERENT type of internal experience than you or I do…they’re not watching football on sunday…they’re not worried about paying BILLS this month…But, WHAT IF… in a very MONISTIC sort of way…a lot of Panpsychist theory is based on a form of Monism originally talked about by Bertrand Russell…what if there is a SINGLE SUBSTANCE that underlies ALL of what we know in physical reality… and that SUBSTANCE is consciousness? As Bertrand Russell suggests what if consciousness… is what he calls the causal |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-10|SKELETON of the world. And physical reality…all those particles, fields, and the dispositions of matter… are REALLY, just NETWORKS of consciousness. Now its pretty EASY here for people to misunderstand this… as a type of DUALISM…where a Panpsychist is saying that there’s PHYSICAL reality…and then these PHYSICAL particles have this weird CONSCIOUSNESS substance embedded into them. That’s not what a Panpsychist is saying. What someone like Phillip Goff is saying…is that the particles and fields that we study… are CONSTITUTED of consciousness. They are FORMS of consciousness. When physics is able to map the reliable, mathematical structures of reality…they are able to DO so maybe because these simple particles, with very simple types of internal experiences… can be PREDICTED like that. And then under panpsychism, what if these more SIMPLE networks of conscious entities… somehow colesque into greater and GREATER levels of complexity? You walk up that ladder of complexity far enough…and EVENTUALLY you get to what we know as OUR type of subjective consciousness.Starting from that set of precepts THINK of how much that changes…just as a SIMPLE example… in the conversations we have about free will. Maybe the more complicated, these networks of consciousness become…maybe the more complicated it becomes |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-11|to predict the causal relationships between their behavior. That we’d LOVE to believe that EVERYTHING is simple enough to be causally predictable like particles are…where PEOPLE are that way…where everything you DO as a person is deterministic. And as a committed MATERIALIST living in today’s world… you may be WILLING to make a LOT OF assumptions in that direction if that’s what you WANTED human beings to be, you know they’re LIKE MATTER! They’re LIKE… SCIENCE PROJECTS these people. But as we’ll talk about soon, maybe that’s just not the case. Now if Panpsychism sounds ridiculous at first…consider a few things for a second. First, Phillip Goff would say that a lot of scientific theories that are WIDELY accepted today…are actually completely counter to common sense. Quantum mechanics, relativity, natural selection…just to name a few. Second, consider how little we KNOW about the NATURE of ANY of the physical objects we’re studying the behavior of. He says at one point: IN FACT, the ONLY thing we REALLY know about the intrinsic nature of matter is that SOME of it, specifically the stuff in our brains, INVOLVES this mysterious kind of internal experience that we can’t explain yet with our models. In light |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-12|of the philosophical zombie thought experiment we talked about last time…could we KNOW if ANYTHING else HAD an internal experience if it did? Again, let’s try hard not to project OUR conscious experience onto what consciousness is overall. Remember Helen the monkey. Things can APPEAR to have an experience of phenomenal consciousness but not ACTUALLY be having one. And on the other hand…things can APPEAR to be unconscious, but may actually BE a conscious creature. Like when my daughter wakes me up at four in the morning. I mean, in all seriousness… just consider PLANTS for second as an example. If you are looking around you trying to find OTHER things that are conscious at ANY level…and you run that experiment looking for SOMETHING similar to your OWN, HUMAN type of consciousness. You’d look at a plant… and think there’s no WAY this thing’s conscious. But anyone who’s been around plants knows these things are far from just randomly sprouting, GROWTH algorithms…I mean these things make plans for the future, they make adjustments, they’re competitive. They just MOVE slower than people do. So if we were looking for ONLY something that resembles a HUMAN consciousness… we might be MISSING it. Just saying if |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-13|you saw an article tomorrow saying that scientists discovered plants have a rudimentary type of consciousness…would you BE that surprised? Maybe you would be…and maybe you’re someone who’s on BOARD with Panpsychism in THEORY…but you still got some reservations, you still wonder…WHY would anyone WORK so hard to reincorporate CONSCIOUSNESS back into a theoretical MODEL that’s working so well already? I mean, we can already EXPLAIN particles and FIELDS…WITHOUT having to add in this consciousness underneath. The purely QUANTITATIVE method is WORKING! But a Panpsychist might respond and say, well it’s NOT working for consciousness. It never actually has from the beginning. And imagine a scientist in the 1800’s working under Newtonian mechanics who hears about a crazy theory from one of their fellow scientists talking about an ENTIRELY SEPARATE, QUANTUM REALM that plays by a TOTALLY DIFFERENT set of RULES than macroscopic objects. They might SIMILARLY…be skeptical of that. And they might ALSO say well we can ALREADY EXPLAIN particles WITHOUT this magic quantum realm where electrons are in two places at once and things are quantized. Wouldn’t say a THING IN THE WORLD about the VALIDITY of quantum mechanics though…and magically towards the end of that era of that scientific |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-14|paradigm…scientists felt the need to construct NEW theoretical models to explain things that were still mysterious. But still the question remainsl… WHY work so hard to bring CONSCIOUSNESS back in when the current model is so good? And this is usually the point in the show where I would QUOTE the philosopher that we’re talking about to help me make a further point. And USUALLY the philosophers we talk about are dead. Eek. But the GOOD news about this arc of the show is that these topics are RECENT. Phillip Goff…not dead, it turns out. In fact I sat down and talked to him ABOUT Panpsychism and what it’s like to be a philosopher on the front lines today…INSTEAD of reading quotes. I’m going to be splicing in relevant pieces from our conversation… if you don’t like it, don’t worry, we never gotta do it again, but I thought it might be an interesting way to make this arc of the show BETTER to HEAR from the actual people. And look as a RULE I just try to sustain quality on this podcast…I’m not necessarily trying to do the EXACT same thing over and over again. I just hope you guys like |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-15|what I’m doing. Anyway, right here he is talking about WHY we, as a species, would ever WORK so hard to BRING consciousness back in when there’s SO MUCH GOOD we’re arriving at in the quantitative realm of science. He says:“If there were nothing more to reality than the purely objective, quantitative facts that physical science postulates; I don’t think there would be subjective, qualitative experience. And so we’re at a funny period of history where our official world view is incompatible with the thing which is most evident and the thing which gives life meaning and value. I mean, I think that consciousness is at the root of everything that matters. From deep emotions, complex thoughts, beautiful sensory experiences. Without consciousness nothing would really have any importance.”Now first of all: it’s an interesting point what he’s saying there. We OF COURSE, spend… a TON of resources in our societies in this MASSIVE PROJECT of studying the nature of the PHYSICAL world, and that’s GREAT. But no matter HOW MUCH of that black and white, PHYSICAL scaffolding of reality we uncover…at some other level it’s the QUALITIES of our conscious experience…feeling love, a great conversation, a great song… these are the |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-16|things that make our lives more full of color. At some other level… our conscious EXPERIENCE of the volcano… matters in a different way than anything about, volcanic gas emissions or anything like that.  But now that we’ve established that…REMEMBER at the beginning of the episode, MOST of the people listening to this are going to probably be materialists of some sort…and I’d imagine there’s a lot of materialists out there that HEAR what Phillip Goff just said… and are a bit confused bit. Like… wait a sec, as a good MATERIALIST I gotta ask…don’t we KNOW…the CHEMICALS in the brain that PRODUCE these conscious experiences of love? Or the chemicals inside of the FOOD that PRODUCE a certain reaction in the brain? There obviously IS a connection between the physical world and our subjective experiences. Phillip Goff would say OF COURSE. And ALL of that is valid! But Materialism still DOES NOT EXPLAIN consciousness FULLY. And this goes back to the hard problem of consciousness. EVEN if we can EXPLAIN the exact chemicals that are present that PRODUCE a certain PIECE of our qualitative experience…there is STILL this entire OTHER PIECE of consciousness that it can’t even touch…MY, individual, subjective experience. |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-17|That it FEELS like something to be me? And I think Phillip Goff would say maybe one day materialism WILL be ABLE to explain it fully…but he’s highly skeptical of that and we’re CERTAINLY NOT THERE YET…and UNTIL that day…if we’re going to be TAKING consciousness SERIOUSLY… we have to consider the possibility that MAYBE it’s a problem with the overall worldview that we’re approaching things with. See, on one hand he’s trying to PRESERVE all of the good work that’s been DONE in science so far…but on another hand he cannot IGNORE… this GLARING mystery that isn’t explainable yet. Now part of me wants to sit here all day and keep making the case for PANPSYCHISM as an answer to the hard problem of consciousness. But like we talked about last time, at a certain point NONE of these answers are PERFECT… and in this LARGER series that we’re doing on the big questions of the philosophy of mind…the REAL conversation begins when we start talking about the IMPLICATIONS of accepting Panpsychism. What sort of things may happen to SOCIETY… if we all more or less ACCEPTED a form of Panpsychism to build our personal and SOCIAL policies around? I asked |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-18|Phillip Goff this in our conversation and he thought that there are SEVERAL ways…that our ENTIRE PERSPECTIVE may shift. “I think Panpsychism has the potential to radically change our relationship with the environment and the natural world for the better. If you're a materialist and a tree is you think a tree is just a mechanism, then  its value is only indirect. It  only really has significance in terms of what it can do for us, either looking pretty or sustaining our existence. But if you think a tree is a conscious organism albeit of a very alien kind, then then a tree has moral significance in its own right. You know, chopping down a tree that is an act of moral significance. And I think, for example, when we see these terrible images of forest fires in Brazil of late few years ago now, if you see that as the burning of conscious organisms, that really does add a whole different moral dimension.”See where he’s coming from is that we TYPICALLY see CONSCIOUSNESS as this UNIQUELY HUMAN domain…that it’s something… that makes us SPECIAL. Conscious creatures BECOME something that it’s IMPORTANT to PROTECT in our societies. And the FACT that |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-19|we have consciousness… is USED to JUSTIFY doing any NUMBER of things to the natural world around us… on the basis that these things are NOT conscious and we ARE. These things are just RESOURCES at our disposal. But if EVERYTHING is ultimately constituted of consciousness…then all of a sudden it becomes a lot easier to float the idea that we’re all on MORE of an equal, metaphysical PLAYING field. All of a sudden, as Goff says, human consciousness…there’s nothing THAT special about it…we’re just a highly evolved version of what’s going on everywhere ELSE in the universe. And under THAT way of looking at things…think of how that changes EVERYTHING. A forest fire as he says starts to take on an whole different SORT of moral dimension. How about the way we treat animals, FARMING them so that you can have a beef tar tar with your lemonade. The ENTIRE attitude VERY RECENT in human history that the natural world is just a bunch of SUPPLIES so we can light them on fire and send a rocketship to Mars one day…that WHOLE way of thinking about things starts to look like it MAY be just a BYPRODUCT of modern economic and |2023-06-26T03:04:53.000Z|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|180|Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness?
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98|https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-179-consciousness-hard-problem-l8d98-20|political systems. This attitude goes hand and hand with the purely QUANTITATIVE method of breaking down reality. You know, WHEN we try to understand reality in the sciences…we BREAK things down INTO their component parts. This is what we do. PLANTS exist in the world of biology…a laptop exists in the realm of solid state physics…but it can be easy to forget… that on ANOTHER level…everything IS just sort of EXISTING, WHOLISTICALLY as well. There’s no reason to assume that this stuff is not ALL interconnected in some way, OURSELVES INCLUDED in that. Its just if you were LOOKING at things in a PURELY quantitative sen