My Ghost In The Machine

Why is the topic of death a "no-go-zone" in the Western imagination? What is it about Western culture that makes the Western imagination unable to cope with the problem of death? 

We've all heard Nietzsche's declaration. "God is dead and we have killed him". But, what we seldom get to hear is what made Nietzsche arrive at this conclusion.

Video explores the question "does God exist?" from a traditional Western philosophical and psychoanalytical perspective.

Essay explores Baudrilliard's nihilistic views from Simulacra and Simulation (1981). This is the essay that's showcased in the original Matrix movie in Neo's copy of Simulacra and Simulation.

Short audio essay that explores the "philosophical backstory" of the Matrix Franchise and its debt to the French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard.

Christmas, as a mid-winter celebration, was only introduced into Christianity roughly 300 years after its inception. The early-Christian community did not celebrate Christmas. Nor does Christmas appear, in any shape or form, in the Early-Christian literature.

Conspiracy theories are on the rise. But, are they the products of flawed reasoning and/or a person's intellectual shortcomings, or are they the expression of much deeper underlying collective traumas?

The Hebrew God of Genesis is dead. The Hebrew God of Genesis remains dead, and we have killed him" –declared Nietzsche over 120 years ago. Okay. But, what now? What is a culture supposed to do after it has dismantled its central existential meaning script? Well, the masterpiece game NieR: Automata (dubbed the most philosophical game ever made) has a number of interesting ways of approaching this question.

What is the difference between a person's sex and their gender? In this video/podcast essay, we look at how NieR: Automata examines the feminist philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir through the Amusement Park Boss (i.e., Simone/Beauvoir). Read Transcript

This episode explores how the Ancient-Greek/Platonic concept of a “non-physical soul” was introduced into Christianity through the Roman Christian Commentary texts, and how the introduction of the idea of a "non-physical soul" into Christianity ended up severely destabilizing its overall "theological consistency". This is the final episode in our series on Christianity, and its relationship to the Problem of Death (3/3).

This episode explores how Christianity became the official religion of the entire Roman empire, and how this event ultimately changed the way Christianity conceptualized the “afterlife”. This is the second (2/3) episode in our series on the various Christian approaches to the problem of death.

This episode is the first in a three part series (1/3), in which we begin to discuss why Christianity broke away from Judaism, and how this "split" ultimately lead to Christianity adopting a substantially different approach to "the problem of death" than the one it had initially inherited from Judaism.

This episode explores how traditional Judaism views the afterlife, and how it approaches the problem of death. The episode is intended to serve as the basis for the upcoming episodes that I'll be releasing on Christianity. Watch Episode on YouTube

This episode explores how the “problem of death” (i.e., our continual self-awareness of our own mortality), shapes and influences the way we conceptualize ourselves, our priorities, our goals, and the world we see around us. In addition, this episode also explores the relationships between the problem of death and the three general conceptual models of reality that we have developed as a species, namely, materialism, dualism, and idealism. Watch Episode on YouTube

This episode introduces what the My Ghost in the Machine (Philosophy Podcast) is, and examines both the origins and meaning of the phrase "The Ghost in the Machine". Watch Episode on YouTube

Where does the concept of a non-physical afterlife originate from? In this episode I argue that the concept has its origins in the world of dreams.    

Can death give our life a sense of meaning? This episode explores how NieR: Automata tackles Kierkegaard’s argument for a “blind leap of faith”, Pascal’s Wager, and the intrinsic relationship between religiosity and “suicide cults”.| Join the discussion on my Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/my_ghost_in_the_machine/ Visit my website: www.myghostinthemachine.com  Transition music credit:|Plunderer by Barradeen | https://soundcloud.com/barradeen

Ever wondered how Tibetan Buddhism approaches the problem of death? In this episode, we explore how Tibetan Buddhists combine lucid dreaming with the practice of PHOWA (i.e., out-of-body-experiences) in order to teach themselves how to consciously navigate the so-called “Bardo of Death”. Visit my website: www.myghostinthemachine.com. Transition music credit: Plunderer by Barradeen | https://soundcloud.com/barradeen

This episodes explores machine gender roles, why it’s never a good idea to borrow someone else’s god (after you’ve killed your own god), and what it takes to rise above “your circumstances” once you’ve become aware of the meaninglessness of existence.  The episode also explores the philosophy of Simon de Beauvoir, individualism, why the Japanese Shinto religion cannot be practiced outside of Japan, and why the West has become infatuated with Japanese culture. |myghostinthemachine.com|

The first part of this episode, explore the cognitive relationship between conspiracy theories and delusional thinking, and argues that conspiracy theories (just like psychiatric delusions) are a type of "trauma-coping" mechanism ––albeit, a collective (as opposed to an individual) "trauma-coping" mechanism. In addition, the first part of the episode also explores the idea that delusions and conspiracy theories are by-products of our innate ability to build immersive imaginary worlds in our heads (i.e., a type of "imaginary world gone-wrong"). The latter half of the episode, on the other hand, builds on these ideas and explores some of the current COVID-19 conspiracy theories which are now popular online. Specifically, (1) the idea that COVID-19 is caused by 5G cellphone towers, (2) the idea that Bill Gates is trying to microchip the entire world population through a COVID-19 vaccine, and (3) the idea that COVID-19 is an "artificial" virus, which was created in "sometype" of underground lab in Wuhan (China). | Visit my website at: www.myghostinthemachine.com |

Let’s talk about the underlying philosophy of the masterpiece hit game: NieR Automata! In this episode (part 1/3) we explore:• The death of the Hebrew God of Genesis;• The problem with the Buddhist concept of reincarnation;• What would happen if you were to upload your consciousness to a computer and then download it into multiple sleeves /chassis /bodies at once;• And the Ship of Theseus paradox (i.e., if you replace every part of an object over time, will that object still remain the same object as it was initially or not?). –A.J.E.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every single facet of our contemporary social order. Economics. Employment. Healthcare. Education. Transportation. Supply-chains. Travelling. You name it.Yet, in spite of this, public opinion concerning the “seriousness” of COVID-19 tends to range from “mildly” to “extremely” concerned. What’s more, differences of opinion have emerged regarding nearly every single facet of the COVID-19 pandemic.Do face masks work? Was a quarantine necessary? Is COVID-19 as serious as the media and scientific establishment is making it out to be? Can we develop long-term immunity to SARS-CoV-2? Will we have a COVID-19 vaccine? Does Sweden’s “herd immunity” approach work? Why don’t we just restart the economy already? And so on.In this episode, we examine these questions from a historical, philosophical, and scientific perspective, in order to gain a clearer outlook on the overall COVID-19 situation.

This episode explores the different Christian approaches to the Problem of Death, and argues that the core architectural structure of Christianity was (ultimately) disrupted when the Platonic concept of a “non-physical soul” was introduced into its conceptual framework. This episode also compares and contrasts the traditional Judaeo-Christian approach to the Problem of Death (namely, the concept of Physical Resurrection) with the Platonic “non-physical” Christian approach to the Problem of Death (which was only introduced —much later— into Christianity through the so-called “Roman Christian Commentary Texts”, or long after the Christian Bible had already been finalized). In addition, this episode also presents an accessible overview of the history of Christianity, and explains its conceptual origins, as well as its theological relationship to Judaism.  

This episode expands the discussion on the Problem of Death that I begun in my previous episode, and presents the traditional Judaic approach to the Problem of Death, as an example of a materialistic conceptual framework through which the Problem of Death can be indefinitely postponed.

In this episode, I argue that the problem of death (i.e., having to live while knowing full well that one day we will no longer exist) has only been approached (at least on a conceptual level) from either a materialistic, dualistic, or idealistic conceptual framework. In the episodes to come, I will provide examples from different systems of thought to illustrate how contrasting conceptual frameworks tackle the problem of death. 

In this episode, I present the origin and reason why I chose to name this podcast "My Ghost in the Machine". The episode explores the relationship between Cartesian dualism and Gilbert Ryle's characterization of Descartes' philosophy as "the dogma of the ghost in the machine". This episode also presents and discusses the dreams that inspired Descartes to develop his philosophy and why the Bishop of Manchester, William Temple, would later describe the dreams as “the most disastrous moment in the history of Europe”.