Podcasts about Cartesian

The word “Cartesian” is synonymous with a radical contrast between mind and body. What led Descartes to his dualism, and how can he explain vital activities in humans and animals having rejected the Aristotelian theory of soul?

Is AI a miracle, heralding an age of invention, or the harbinger of a dystopian civilizational collapse? The rise of short-form video on social platforms - empowering creators, or undermining society? The only certainty these days is uncertainty. But for curious minds, that's precisely what makes it exciting. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle catches up with Emanuel Rose, CEO of Strategic eMarketing and author of Authentic Marketing in the Age of AI, Authenticity: Marketing to Generation Z,  The Social Media Edge, numerous e-books, and children's books.  As a storyteller, marketer, and dubbed by Dan as a Renaissance man, Emanuel brings a unique perspective to the discussion on AI, generational differences in technology adoption, and the future of communication. The conversation touches on the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in marketing and communications, with Emanuel sharing insights on how businesses can start integrating AI into their operations. They discuss the importance of maintaining human creativity in storytelling while leveraging AI tools, and the potential for AI to free up time for more meaningful pursuits. Listen in and hear about... Embracing chaos in an era of rapid technological change Generational differences in AI adoption and digital habits Leveraging AI for content repurposing and brand storytelling Automating mundane tasks to focus on creative pursuits Balancing screen time and digital detox for mental well-being Adapting communication strategies for Gen Z audiences Exploring the future of voice-activated AI assistants   Notable Quotes On Staying Curious: "I just, I follow the rabbit holes and that's kind of what I think is the joy of being a human. And we have access to so much information now, we can learn anything we want. And the secret is to stay curious." - Emanuel Rose [3:41 - 4:05] On Human Consciousness and Technology: "Our job is not to click buttons any more than it is to swing a hoe. Right. So we have to get out of our Cartesian framework." - Emanuel Rose [9:42 - 9:50] On Generational Differences in Technology Adoption: "The Z's just. They just absorb this stuff and, you know, and then, you know, they were all. All the way down to the alphas. Now they're. You know, they're like 8, 9, 10, that range. And so it's like they're going to absorb it in the same kind of way." - Emanuel Rose [17:23 - 17:35] On the Role of Humans in AI-Generated Content: "I think the human in the loop is the critical part of this. And it's kind of like, could I have my doppelganger, my video doppelganger, do all my zoom calls for me? Well, yeah, I can. I can do that now." - Emanuel Rose [40:25 - 40:35]   Resources and Links Dan Nestle Inquisitive Communications | Website The Trending Communicator | Website Communications Trends from Trending Communicators | Dan Nestle's Substack Dan Nestle | LinkedIn Dan Nestle | Twitter/X Emanuel Rose Emanuel Rose | Website Strategic eMarketing | Website Books by Emanuel Rose | Website Emanuel Rose | LinkedIn Timestamps for your convenience (as generated by Flowsend.ai) 0:00 Intro: Embracing chaos and technological change 5:10 Rise of AI agents and retail-level automation 9:42 Philosophical approach to AI and human purpose 15:51 Generational differences in technology adoption 20:18 Managing screen time and digital detox 25:07 Lack of AI adoption in small businesses 30:39 The future of voice-activated AI assistants 35:42 Importance of effective AI prompting skills 40:25 Balancing AI capabilities with human values 45:18 Leveraging existing content with custom GPTs 49:59 Automating tasks to focus on creativity   (Notes co-created by Human Dan and a variety of AI helpers, including Fireflies.ai and Flowsend.ai)

Is AI a miracle, heralding an age of invention, or the harbinger of a dystopian civilizational collapse? The rise of short-form video on social platforms - empowering creators, or undermining society? The only certainty these days is uncertainty. But for curious minds, that's precisely what makes it exciting. In this episode of The Trending Communicator, host Dan Nestle catches up with Emanuel Rose, CEO of Strategic eMarketing and author of Authentic Marketing in the Age of AI, Authenticity: Marketing to Generation Z,  The Social Media Edge, numerous e-books, and children's books.  As a storyteller, marketer, and dubbed by Dan as a Renaissance man, Emanuel brings a unique perspective to the discussion on AI, generational differences in technology adoption, and the future of communication. The conversation touches on the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in marketing and communications, with Emanuel sharing insights on how businesses can start integrating AI into their operations. They discuss the importance of maintaining human creativity in storytelling while leveraging AI tools, and the potential for AI to free up time for more meaningful pursuits. Emanuel and Dan also examine the generational divide in AI adoption, particularly focusing on Gen X and Gen Z, and how different age groups approach new technologies. They consider the impact of screen time on younger generations and the potential long-term effects on communication skills and social interaction. Throughout the episode, Emanuel emphasizes the need for businesses to embrace change and automate processes to remain competitive. He shares practical advice on tools for automation and discusses the concept of "retail-level" AI agents that could revolutionize how we work. This episode offers valuable insights for communicators, marketers, and business leaders looking to navigate the rapidly changing technological landscape. Whether you're an AI enthusiast or skeptic, you'll find food for thought in this engaging discussion about the future of work, creativity, and human interaction in an AI-driven world.   Listen in and hear about... Embracing chaos in an era of rapid technological change Generational differences in AI adoption and digital habits Leveraging AI for content repurposing and brand storytelling Automating mundane tasks to focus on creative pursuits Balancing screen time and digital detox for mental well-being Adapting communication strategies for Gen Z audiences Exploring the future of voice-activated AI assistants   Notable Quotes On Staying Curious: "I just, I follow the rabbit holes and that's kind of what I think is the joy of being a human. And we have access to so much information now, we can learn anything we want. And the secret is to stay curious." - Emanuel Rose [3:41 - 4:05] On AI and Automation: "We're actually able to build, very simply build automations, which maybe not is really AI, but at least we're able to connect things via ZAP and via MAKE and some of these kind of activities." - Emanuel Rose [5:10 - 5:22] On Human Consciousness and Technology: "Our job is not to click buttons any more than it is to swing a hoe. Right. So we have to get out of our Cartesian framework." - Emanuel Rose [9:42 - 9:50] On Generational Differences in Technology Adoption: "The Z's just. They just absorb this stuff and, you know, and then, you know, they were all. All the way down to the alphas. Now they're. You know, they're like 8, 9, 10, that range. And so it's like they're going to absorb it in the same kind of way." - Emanuel Rose [17:23 - 17:35] On the Future of Voice Interaction: "We're very close. I'd say three months. We will have a complete voice activated operating system and be able to do probably 90% of our work by voice." - Emanuel Rose [33:15 - 33:23] On the Role of Humans in AI-Generated Content: "I think the human in the loop is the critical part of this. And it's kind of like, could I have my doppelganger, my video doppelganger, do all my zoom calls for me? Well, yeah, I can. I can do that now." - Emanuel Rose [40:25 - 40:35] On Automation and Work-Life Balance: "Well, I really am thinking about what I can automate. No matter how big of a string of activities, I want to automate all the stuff that is not creative so that I can spend more time playing my guitar and more time meditating and more time taking long walks and maintain the level of professional standards that I have." - Emanuel Rose [49:59 - 50:17] On the Chaos of Technological Change: "I'm enjoying the chaos of the moment. Now hang on. Easy does it. I'm not talking about foreign or domestic affairs or politics. I mean, we live in an age where we simply don't know what's coming. Great for curious people." - Dan Nestle [0:00 - 0:13] On the Potential of AI in Storytelling: "I think it comes down to storytelling, you know, and no, I mean, AI could tell a story. You give it a framework, right? Say, hey, I want you to follow this framework. But is there that innate capability There isn't yet to outpace humans or outdo humans in this idea of storytelling, whether it's creative storytelling or brand storytelling." - Dan Nestle [38:02 - 38:22]   Resources and Links Dan Nestle Inquisitive Communications | Website The Trending Communicator | Website Communications Trends from Trending Communicators | Dan Nestle's Substack Dan Nestle | LinkedIn Dan Nestle | Twitter/X Emanuel Rose Emanuel Rose | Website Strategic eMarketing | Website Books by Emanuel Rose | Website Emanuel Rose | LinkedIn   Timestamped key moments from this episode (as generated by Fireflies.ai)

As we are drawn more deeply into the spiritual warfare of the Desert fathers and learn from their stories of how the demons will provoke a soul and lure it into sin, we begin to see how important it is to put on the mind of Christ; that is, to embrace fully the mindset of the person of faith and the life that we are meant to embody. One of the beautiful aspects of the Evergetinos is that it does not simply present us with teachings but also with the concrete struggle of the fathers and the nature and subtlely of demonic provocation.  We begin to understand that there is no room for pride in the spiritual life. In particular with the passion of fornication, it is the coward who is the victor; that is, he who flees. Our strength is found only in the Lord and clinging to him. We must have no illusion about the strength of our virtue, no matter how long we have engaged in the spiritual life or how virtuous we may seem to be. “Pride rideth before the fall”.  We also see in these stories how the demons sing out to the soul in order to present the temptation as the most attractive and beautiful of things. They can draw even the most seasoned of ascetics into a kind of crazed frenzy or mania. Therefore, we are taught that we must turn immediately to the Lord, raising our hands to the heavens and falling on our knees, begging for his protection.  The demons will show no mercy. In fact, their goal is not simply to draw an individual into sin, but also to draw them into despair where repentance is stymied. After a fall, they become the soul's accuser and will even use scripture to mock her in such a way as to drive her into greater darkness. Their desire is to make us lose confidence in the mercy and compassion of God. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:05:21 Bob Cihak: P. 212 # 8 00:13:45 Bob Cihak: P. 212 # 8 00:20:40 Wayne: What page? 00:20:53 Nypaver Clan: 213 00:21:00 Nypaver Clan: top 00:21:05 Wayne: thanks 00:28:27 Fr Marty, AZ 480-292-3381: It's interesting to consider that we can till the soil for this temptation by giving into other passions. Just reminds me to be vigilant, especially in how I consider others. And in fleeing too. Valuable insight to help me realize that I'm not as blindsided as I thought but I'd been opening doors to weaken me in temptation. 00:32:14 Anthony: Sometimes it takes getting sick and tired of the situation to develop a contempt for it. 00:35:04 Fr Marty, AZ 480-292-3381: Did you say the mindset is called phronema? 00:35:48 Kate : The mindset you describe is like nothing I have ever heard or experienced being a Latin Rite Catholic. 00:39:49 Anthony: The West co.es by it honestly...having to know by size, weight a day number, which medieval texts extrapolate I think from Sirach.  I prefer St Ephrem's poem on the Hidden Pearl taken as a unity. 00:40:12 Anthony: Comes 00:42:19 Nina and Sparky: Phil 2:2 πληρώσατέ μου τὴν χαρὰν ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε     "fill up my cup of happiness by thinking with the same mind"  See the last greek word phronete. In modern writing, I have heard the phrase "according to the mind of the church" 00:42:25 Myles Davidson: The word “re-enchantment” is being used more amongst some Catholic circles. The need to return to a more poetic pre-Cartesian worldview 00:44:00 Anthony: Reacted to The word “re-enchant... with "

We recorded this about a year ago, for the 25th anniversary of the release of THE MATRIX. But since Elon Musk now controls the country, we're republishing an edited-down version because it's important to know how Musk thinks. Next episode, we'll be talking about a number of the other beliefs that shape Musk's worldview, among them Roko's Basilisk, so this episode is good preparation for that conversation. ************************************************************************************ In 2003, Oxford University philosophy professor Nick Bostrom published a paper titled Are You Living in a Computer Simulation, thus giving rise to the modern incarnation of Simulation Theory, which posits that our experienced reality is actually the product of an advanced (possibly future-self) civilization running a simulation experiment. But the paper on might have been written off as a useful thought experiment had it not been for the popularity of the 1999 film The Matrix, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month, and its two sequels, which came out the same year as Bostrom's paper. In the years since, Simulation Theory has become a lot of things to a lot of people - from a fun metaphor to explain Cartesian philosophy to college freshmen to an all-out article of faith for an increasingly doctrinaire sub-culture of futurists. How useful (or even likely) is Simulation Theory? In honor of The Matrix's birthday, John and Kelly decided to take up that question. Sources https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf https://builtin.com/hardware/simulation-theory https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/ https://www.wired.com/story/living-in-a-simulation/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

First, credit to Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington for the topic. They are a wellspring of thought-provoking inspiration. Now… The great post-Enlightenment revolution that promised to unshackle the mind from superstition and lead us into an age of reason has, in its end, given us a world gripped by its own decadence. We've spent centuries in a brave, frenetic race to divorce ourselves from a truth deeper than the mind's ability to comprehend, all the while building false towers of science and technology in our bid for ultimate control. The moment of "Enlightenment" became the moment when everything was atomized and reduced to measure, to numbers, to a dull, materialistic existence that only ever seemed to lead to greater alienation. And yet, something is quietly, even powerfully, shifting in the modern psyche— something ancient, something true— quietly rising from beneath the hushed noise of the last few centuries of materialism. This great experiment, built on the Cartesian delusion that we can break the world down to parts, and rule it, has come undone. The fruit is rotten, and we are tasting it. In the places where God's Spirit once spoke boldly, now we hear only hollow claims of progress, identity politics, and the fractured whims of individual will. It is a decadence wrapped in high-minded idealism, filled with the weight of ideological contradictions, and riddled with deep uncertainty about the value of life itself. What does it mean to be alive, to breathe, to be rooted in the soil of a tradition older than our years? The materialist vision cannot answer this. It can only ask what we measure, what is efficient, what is quantifiable. The invisible world—the reality we once understood through myth, symbol, and holy ritual—is nowhere to be found. So what happens when we become too hollow and thin for the mind to live within? What happens when we've spent so long pushing all that cannot be captured and boxed away with our devices that we begin to lose the thread of meaning? We fall back into that original quiet. The grand boast of materialism and its undergirding ideology of reason—that things can be measured, controlled, quantified—has fallen short. We see it on every front: in our politics, in our so-called “progress,” in the increasing unhappiness in even the richest corners of the world. Technology, once hailed as the liberator of mankind, has enslaved us— tricked us into thinking that convenience and speed will fulfill our deepest needs. It hasn't. The moment we thought we could measure everything is the moment we forgot to measure the things that truly matter: the things which can't be touched, counted, or digitized. The things which seem absent, yet are alive—beauty, grace, spirit, and the truth that reality is filled with breath and meaning. There is more to the world than the observable, more than the definable. We've become trapped by a glass box, in which we try to describe a world we don't truly know. We've severed the connections to what keeps us bound to the earth, to the sky, and to each other, yet, it is these very connections that once gave meaning and direction to all things. Now, as the material world itself crumbles, we're awakening, though perhaps still blindfolded, to the return of the enchanted, the inspirited. What is spirituality if not this spirit—the anima of the world—that still beckons from the depths of every sacred moment and still cries for our awakening? There is nothing more real than this reality which encircles us but which we cannot measure. Make no mistake, we are entering a second Reformation, one far deeper than the last. This Reformation will not only sweep away the dead husks of a religious world corrupted by doctrine and political authority; it will strip us of the hardened, synthetic shells of meaning we have so skillfully manufactured through modernity's broken lens. This coming return is not a blind return to the old ways for the sake of nostalgia or tradition but a return to the living essence of the world itself. It is a return to the truth that things do indeed have a nature— a depth beyond appearance, a truth that reaches far beyond the shiny falseness we've pursued so recklessly in recent centuries. Yes, nature speaks to us; it speaks without tongue but with thrum. There is a steady whisper carried on the wind, on the waves, in the forest's hushed prayer— an enchantment buried within the hills and riverbeds, in the old myths of creation and destruction, woven through our ancestors' rituals and belief. It hums through us still, even as we have dismissed it for ages. And in time, just like the land's reclamation after a long drought, so too will this truth reclaim what it never lost, never relinquished: its vitality. This spiritual truth is no abstraction, but an ancient reality— a reality that calls us back to connection. It stands directly against the fragmented, isolated subjectivity we've deluded ourselves with. True liberty lies in participation— not in self-will, but in participating with creation, with the divine, and yes— with the community of beings that stretch from the rooted earth to the high heavens. And at the crossroads where this battle is fought, we, who are bound together under the vast canopy of all-encompassing truth, must hold firm to a belief older than reason itself. A belief in the rootedness of the world's soul, in its holy consistency even when everything is shaken. For the war between materialism and the spiritual reality of things is a great one— but in the end, it is not we who will make the final blow. Here, beneath the weight of this upheaval, something is beginning to stir in us. Those whose hearts have long been scattered in search of meaning, lost amidst the vain promises of secular ideologies and blind constructions of the world, are awakening. And when the material system finally meets its end— as it surely must— we shall rise, like the returning spring, to breathe once again in a world both real and divine, where nothing is lost to us, and nothing is ever wasted. And as we rise again from the ash of this failed revolution, the chains of the modern world shall fall from us, undone by the very power they tried to dismiss. In this second Reformation, we shall live, with eyes wide open to the light of what we were never meant to forget: That there is something more— much more— than what we see. And in that understanding, we shall begin to measure not by counting or dividing, but by receiving and participating. And so the Age of Enchantment shall return— and this time it will endure. —D.

Seriah is joined by the duo of engineer Jim Elvidge (author of “The Universe-Solved” and “Digital Consciousness”) and physicist Brian Geislinger (author of numerous academic papers and physics professor at Gasden State Community College) to take a deep dive on simulation theory. Topics include Nick Bostrom, Tom Campbell, Brian Whitworth, quantum mechanics, Eastern philosophy, a future advanced AI, Melvin Vopson, a connection between simulation theory and Covid-19, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, information and matter, informational entropy, life as denying physical laws, an analogy involving a cup of coffee, compressing data, the observer effect, the differences between physics at the classical scale and at the subatomic scale, quantum tunneling, quantum entanglement, patterns in nature, Albert Einstein and Relativity, Dean Radin and psi research, a video game analogy, holographic theory, cellular automaton theory, Plato's cave, Déjà vu, string theory, James Gates, quadratic equations, mathematical reality vs physical reality, time as a physical dimension, Cartesian coordinates, imaginary numbers, information theory, the book “The Invisible Gorilla”, the human memory, modeling biological behavior, optical illusions, slime mold learning, a disturbing experiment on rats, lobotomies and other extreme brain surgery, severe epilepsy, “Beacon 23” TV series, anomalous brain formation, brain damage without disability, a fascinating academic psi study, questions about free will and MRIs, explanations for precognition, a complicated prophetic dream, experiences with precognitive dreams, dream time, information sent back in time, poltergeist activity, “Mandela” effects, the nature of time, the Buddhist concept of “Maya”, possible non-existence of time/a static universe, perception and reality, the “Matrix” films, and much more! This is a fascinating discussion of simulation theory with people who can intelligently discuss it, making complex concepts understandable without ever condescending to the listeners! This is a truly exceptional episode!

Send us a text4X4: Lars von Trier #3Breaking our own arbitrary rules just like Lars von Trier, the enfant terrible final director of Season 13's 4x4, the TGTPTU crew for our final pairing breaks with release date order to review the later paired film earlier, giving you this week ANTICHRIST (2009).  From the throes of depression, LVT emerged to sink the world into his vision of grief, anxiety, and madness with the horror story of a couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg), their gendered power dynamics, and a totally normal depiction of married sex life. Not only are these two main husband-wife characters unnamed (something host Jack hates), with the exception their child who won't survive the movie's Prologue, all other characters are extras who appear with faces blurred, maintaining the isolation and focus on the archetypes of a controlling male and a woman who cannot find herself in the narratives of motherhood. Or, that's one interpretation of many readings Antichrist allows as it questions, potentially: whether human nature is good or evil, if there is a different nature for women than men, how nature influences nurture, and if nature itself can be framed in terms of good or evil. Also left to questioning: the crew on this film as to whether LVT would finish the movie as his struggle with depression persisted. But what is not open to question is how visually arresting the film is. In combination with the Dogme 95-inspired handheld camerawork complemented by the time-cut style discussed last episode with Dancer in the Dark (also with no preproduction rehearsals for actors), LVT introduces two visual styles new to his filmography. The first, shot in a repetitive extreme close-ups, is a sequence reminiscent of Aronofsky's hip-hop montage (see Season 11) and 2024's Cuckoo (see future Season 19 Singer vs. Singer) that captures the feelings of anxiety experienced, initially, by the wife. The second stylist tone, and the one that opens the tragedy of their neglected child falling from a window while they are having black-and-white penetrative sex, uses high resolution slow motion for gorgeously crisp imagery that later is repeated but spectrally layered as if in a dream. From the hosts this week: Thomas demonstrates effectively totally knows what sex is; Ryan goes Cartesian; Jack receives a visit from the Sight and Sound people about putting Audition on his list; and Ken is a grump who wants LA to burn to the ground. Join one pair of hosts in praising the film or perhaps pose the question as a reporter for the Daily Mail did at Cannes (available on the Blu-ray) to LVT: “Would you please, for my benefit, explain and justify why you made this movie?”  What does it really matter? Chaos reigns.  Content Note: While a forest retreat where Dafoe's character discovers a mommy deer, a helpful crow, and a talking fox might sound like a family-friend animated film, the genital mutilation in the film definitely veers toward adult content. So CONTENT WARNING: while you might enjoy this film as two TGTPTU hosts did, you're not going to leave this film content.  Final Note: At the release of this episode (late-January 2025), Bob's Big Boy in LA has been booked solid and the front of the building covered with flowers, but at the time of this episode's recording David Lynch had yet to slip into the ether. THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.comFacebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTUInstagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0Bluesky: @mrkoral.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-gBuzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/Letterboxd (follow us!):Ken: Ken KoralRyan: Rya

Episode 99 Listen up! Either Michael and Zach are giving away a new car...or they are discussing the differences between Cartesian and Hylomorphic Dualism. Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/VYc5d5EVTL4 Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): ⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stone⁠ License code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8 Find more Take 2 Theology content at https://take2pod.wordpress.com

Can understanding human nature transform how we approach missions, ministry, and personal spiritual growth? In this episode of the Lausanne Movement Podcast, Dr. Stan Wallace, Lausanne Catalyst for Academic Ministry & Educators Network (AMEN), author, and president of Global Scholars, explores the intersection of neuroscience, theology, and human flourishing. From the duality of body and soul to the challenges of engaging with AI and societal ethics, Dr. Wallace unpacks the fundamental question: “What does it mean to be human?” This conversation offers deep insights for those passionate about ministry, missions, and spiritual formation. Takeaways: Human Nature and Flourishing: Explore the differences between physicalism, Cartesian dualism, and holistic dualism—and their implications for spiritual formation. Ministry and Missions: Understand why defining the soul-body connection is vital for engaging diverse cultural contexts in evangelism and discipleship. AI and Human Identity: Discover how a clear view of human uniqueness shapes our interactions with artificial intelligence. Ethics and Justice: See how human identity grounds our advocacy for justice, equality, and bioethical decisions. Practical Application: Learn how holistic dualism reshapes approaches to counseling, pastoral care, and professional life. If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review, and share this with others. Dive deeper into these ideas by checking out Stan Wallace's new book and visiting his website! Links & Resources: Stan Wallace's Book: Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing - https://www.amazon.com/Have-Lost-Our-Minds-Neurotheology/dp/1666789135 Stan's Website: https://stanwallace.org/ Academic Ministry & Educators Network (AMEN): https://lausanne.org/network/academic-ministry-educators Global Scholars: https://global-scholars.org/ Guest Bio: Dr Stan Wallace has been in university ministry since 1985, serving as Global Scholars' president since 2014. Global Scholars equips Christian scholars in pluralistic universities to have a redemptive influence for Christ, primarily as a principal partner of the Society of Christian Scholars. He has served as an adjunct professor of philosophy at several institutions and has published on issues of faith and scholarship integration, including his most recent, Have We Lost Our Minds? Neuroscience, Neurotheology, the Soul, and Human Flourishing (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2024). Dr Wallace also produces two monthly podcasts: College Faith and, with Dr. J.P. Moreland, Thinking Christianly.

ACESS VIDEO VERSION BELOW, PURE AUDIO ABOVE Welcome to Season 11 Episode 4 of Thoth-Hermes Podcast…. Though with our guest in this dialogue, who can be quite sure of linear time?  Rudolf and Karin are in conversation with author Dr. Eric Wargo. Academically an anthropologist, Eric has extended his spirit of scientific enquiry through Hermeticism, Alchemy, and into the contemporary “paranormal” discourse at large.  Most specifically, he has taken on depth exploration of time: time loops, retrocausation, and precognition.  This branch of study began for Eric in 2009, after having a UFO/UAP Experience.  This anomalous experience created his initiation into the branch of modern scientists fully versed in scientific method yet fully aware of the mountain of Spooky anecdotal evidence of More.  Law of Large Numbers? Yes, acknowledged: and gently set aside.  Materialist explanation?  A precise language with descriptive validity and profound explanatory limitations.  Experience and initiation- their distinction, and coexistence- are honored throughout this conversation. Eric encountered break-out success with his 2018t book “Time Loops” (which Karin is on record as “passing out almost like Gospel” and scribe Emily keeps in her inner temple box of books).  He has also written on Precognitive Dreaming (2021).  In his current release, “From Nowhere”, he applies these insights to creativity.  Eric notes the role of skilled stress states, flow states, altered states, and creative states in the enhanced experience of precognition.  He also invites a cultural shift towards the upfront naming of retrocausation; moving past Cartesian duality; and  transcending the labyrinth closures found with all of free will, predestination, and Many Worlds theory. In the expanse of unknown, this interview spans a variety of lenses on time and anomaly.  We hear a definition of “retrocausation” that includes both the science of the subatomic level and the co-existing validity of intuitive experience.  The occult Higher Self as perhaps the Long Self which Eric articulates in relation to precognitive dreaming.  The notion of “flipping Freud” and symbolic precognitive insight as the method the Long Self can use to address our agency.  The challenges of True Will, Free Will, and dynamic interaction with choice.  Eric suggests that our “intentions” may frequently be misrecognized precognitions.  If this sounds like one wild moebius strip of a conversation: it is!  And highly enjoyable.  After you listen, carry receptivity for unfolding Wonder in your life events. Eric Wargo has a PhD in anthropology from Emory University and works as a science writer and editor in Washington, DC. He is the author of three books on precognition: From Nowhere, Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self, and the acclaimed Time Loops. In his spare time, he writes about science fiction, consciousness, and the paranormal at his popular blog, The Nightshirt. Click here to access Eric's blog! Music played in this episode The music for this episode is very special indeed. As we have been talking about AI and the occult in Episode 1, I thought it is time here that AI proves us its artistic capacities! So I looked up music composed and performed by AI! And I bring to you three very different examples of such music, created by AIVA (short for Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) Find out more about it by clicking here! To add even more AI, the images those of you who are watching the video version of this episode will see,

VYS0043 | The Reich Stuff - Vayse to Face with Dan Lowe - Show Notes Facing down a huge topic that they have been wanting to talk about on Vayse for years, Hine and Buckley enlist integrative therapist Dan Lowe, to guide them through the massively dense, often confusing and incredibly weird life and work of Wilhem Reich. Dan is massively knowledgeable on the subject and gives fascinating insights on Reich and is patient when Hine and Buckley asking him what can only be frustratingly basic questions: What differentiates Reichian therapy from other types of psychotherapy? What is Orgone Energy? What is emotional armouring? Was there a conspiracy against Reich? Did cloud-busting really work?... and what did Kate Bush actually know about Wilhelm Reich anyway...? (Recorded 29 August 2024) Thanks to Dan for indulging us in asking questions on a subject that we know next to nothing about and thanks as always to Keith for the show notes - give the man a follow: @peakflow.bsky.social Dan Lowe online Dan on Twitter (https://x.com/Orgone1) Dan's Counselling Directory profile (https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/dan-lowe) Hine's Intro Cloudbuster - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbuster) Orgone - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgone) Wilhelm Reich - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich) Integrative psychotherapy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_psychotherapy) The Life and Ideas of Wilhelm Reich with Dan Lowe - What Magic Is This? podcast (https://podtail.com/en/podcast/what-magic-is-this/the-life-and-ideas-of-wilhelm-reich-with-dan-lowe/) Who Was Wilhelm Reich? The Theory and Practice of Reichian Therapy with Dan Lowe - Acid Horizon podcast (https://podtail.com/podcast/acid-horizon/who-was-wilhelm-reich-the-theory-and-practice-of-r/) Reichian Therapy, Character Armor, and Christ with Dan Lowe - Hermetix podcast (https://podtail.com/podcast/hermitix/reichian-therapy-character-armor-and-christ-with-d/) Vayse to Face with Dan Lowe Robert Anton Wilson - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson) The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism) The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/781662.The_Mass_Psychology_of_Fascism) Cosmic Trigger #2 - Down to Earth by Robert Anton Wilson - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44491690-down-to-earth) Reichian therapy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichian_therapy) Health Touch (Dierdre Gough) website (https://www.healthtouch1.co.uk/) Sigmund Freud - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud) Character structures: what are the 5 Reichian character defense patterns? - Body Mind Assessment (https://bodymindassessment.com/blog/character-structures/) Body psychotherapy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_psychotherapy) Character Analysis - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_Analysis) Character Analysis by Wilhelm Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339384.Character_Analysis) Reich's Segmental Armouring Theory - Energetics Institute (https://www.energeticsinstitute.com.au/characterology/reichs-segmental-armouring-theory/) Mind-body (Cartesian) dualism - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism) Fury On Earth: A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich by Myron R. Sharaf - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150920.Fury_On_Earth) Function of the Orgasm by Wilhelm Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339389.The_Function_of_the_Orgasm) Orgasmatron scene from Sleeper - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZvpIE5g5Fo) Prana - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana) Qi - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi) Pranayama - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama) Chakra - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra) Monroe Institute website (https://www.monroeinstitute.org/) Robert Monroe - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Monroe) Syncretism - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism) Wilhelm Reich, Biologist by James E. Strick - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23502980-wilhelm-reich-biologist) Satanic panic - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic) What an Accumulator Is, and How to Make and Use One - Orgone.org (https://www.orgone.org/Pages/Accumulators.htm) Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War by James Edward Martin - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22238882-wilhelm-reich-and-the-cold-war) Orgone Lab - James DeMeo's Research Website (http://www.orgonelab.org/) The Orgone Accumulator Handbook: Wilhelm Reich's Life-Energy Discoveries and Healing Tools for the 21st Century, with Construction Plans by James DeMeo - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11247814-the-orgone-accumulator-handbook) Claims that former US military project is being used to manipulate the weather are “nonsense” - RMIT (https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/factlab-meta/claims-us-military-project-manipulating-weather-are-nonsense) Right-Wing Influencers Claim ‘They' Defeated Physics, Geoengineered Hurricane Milton - Wired (https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-milton-geoengineer-lasers-fema-conspiracy-theories-debunk/) Kate Bush - Cloudbusting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pllRW9wETzw) Barbarella (1968), the Excessive-Pleasure Machine and Durand Durand - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Da8aDMgHg) Wilhelm Reich and UFOs (article by Peter Robbins) - StudyLib (https://studylib.net/doc/8035315/wilhelm-reich-and-ufos) Contact With Space: Oranur second report, 1951-1956. Orop desert Ea, 1954-1955 by Wilhelm Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39215618-contact-with-space) Gestalt therapy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_therapy) Stanislav Grof website (https://www.stangrof.com/) Holotropic Breathing: A Complete Guide to Techniques and Practice - Primal Trust (https://www.primaltrust.org/holotropic-breathing-how-to-complete-guide/) Lowen Foundation website (https://www.lowenfoundation.org/) Human Potential Movement - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Potential_Movement) Sexual revolution - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution) W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.R.:_Mysteries_of_the_Organism) W.R. - Mysteries of the Organism TRAILER - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpFR2uYeMDA) A.S. Neill Summerhill School website (https://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/) The Institute for Orgonomic Science website (https://orgonomicscience.org/) Dan's Recommendations Billy Woods (& Kenny Segal) - Maps (2023) full album - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prX3U-h6eP0) JPEGMafia - I Lay Down My Life For You (2024) full album - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2v9AtvUHI) Summerhill TV Series (feature-length film) - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BgrGiIYc0) Listen, Little Man! By Wilhelm Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339387.Listen_Little_Man) Emotional Armoring : An Introduction to Psychiatric Orgone Therapy by Morton Herskowitz - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/560893.Emotional_Armoring) Peter Jones - Wilhelm Reich and Forbidden Science - Legalise Freedom (https://youtu.be/oGOPJUnoesA?si=PggFqKYG5oOkvC2f) Buckley's Closing Questions Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985) full album - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO80PF9MMAE) Hounds of Love Reissue - The Baskerville Edition Unboxing Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyk3ZzAnXlU) A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich - Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45453152-a-book-of-dreams) Duran Duran - Electric Barbarella (Official Music Video) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1g5dMYR3s) Vayse Online Vayse website (https://www.vayse.co.uk/) Vayse on Twitter (https://twitter.com/vayseesyav) Vayse on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/vayseesyav/) Vayse on Bandcamp (Music From Vayse) (https://vayse.bandcamp.com/) Vayse on Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/vayse) Vayse email: vayseinfo@gmail.com Special Guest: Dan Lowe.

Lore about ghosts and haunted places doesn't figure prominently in French culture– at least not as much as it does in places like the US, the UK, Ireland, and Japan. One might even argue that, since the French Revolution, France has prided itself on its purported rationality, rejection of superstition, and what it often calls its “Cartesian” way of seeing the world (after the pre-Enlightenment philosopher René Descartes).Support the pod:www.patreon.com/monsterfuzzCheck out our merch:https://monster-fuzz.creator-spring.comEverything else!www.linktr.ee/monsterfuzz

Francis Collins is a veritable national treasure. He directed the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. Prior to that he led the National Human Genetics Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1997-2009, during which the human genome was first sequenced. As a physician-scientist, he has made multiple seminal discoveries on the genetic underpinnings of cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, neurofibromatosis, progeria, and others. This brief summary is barely scratching the surface oh his vast contributions to life science and medicine.A video clip from our conversation on hepatitis C. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with external inks and links to audioEric Topol (00:06):Well, I am really delighted to be able to have our conversation with Francis Collins. This is Eric Topol with Ground Truths and I had the chance to first meet Francis when he was on the faculty at the University of Michigan when I was a junior faculty. And he gave, still today, years later, we're talking about 40 years later, the most dazzling Grand Rounds during his discovery of cystic fibrosis. And Francis, welcome, you inspired me and so many others throughout your career.Francis Collins (00:40):Well, Eric, thank you and you've inspired me and a lot of other people as well, so it's nice to have this conversation with you in the Ground Truths format.Eric Topol (00:49):Well, thank you. We're at the occasion of an extraordinary book you put together. It's the fifth book, but it stands out quite different from the prior books as far as I can tell. It's called The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust, these four essential goods that build upon each other. And it's quite a book, Francis, I have to say, because you have these deep insights about these four critical domains and so we'll get into them. But I guess the first thing I thought I'd do is just say, how at some point along the way you said, “the goal of this book is to turn the focus away from hyperpartisan politics and bring it back to the most important sources of wisdom: truth, science, faith and trust, resting upon a foundation of humility, knowledge, morality, and good judgment.” So there's a lot there. Maybe you want to start off with what was in the background when you were putting this together? What were you really aiming at getting across?Reflections on CovidFrancis Collins (02:06):I'm glad to, and it's really a pleasure to have a chance to chat with you about this. I guess before Covid came along, I was probably a bit of a naive person when it came to how we make decisions. Yeah, I knew there were kind of wacky things that had gone out there from time to time, but I had a sort of Cartesian attitude that we were mostly rational actors and when presented with evidence that's been well defended and validated that most people will say, okay, I know what to do. Things really ran off the rails in the course of Covid. It was this remarkable paradox where, I don't know what you would say, but I would say the development of the vaccines that were safe and highly effective in 11 months using the mRNA platform was one of the most stunning achievements of science in all of history up until now.Francis Collins (03:02):And yet 50 million Americans decided they didn't want any part of it because of information that came to them that suggested this was not safe or there was conspiracies behind it, or maybe the syringes had chips that Bill Gates had put in there or all manner of other things that were being claimed. And good honorable people were distracted by that, lost their trust in other institutions like the CDC, maybe like the government in general like me, because I was out there a lot trying to explain what we knew and what we didn't know about Covid. And as a consequence of that, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 230,000 people died between June of 2021 and April of 2022 because of a decision to reject the opportunity for vaccines that were at that time free and widely available. That is just an incredibly terribly tragic thing to say.Francis Collins (04:03):More than four times the number of people who died, Americans who died in the Vietnam War are in graveyards unnecessarily because we lost our anchor to truth, or at least the ability to discern it or we couldn't figure out who to trust while we decided science was maybe not that reliable. And people of faith for reasons that are equally tragic were among those most vulnerable to the misinformation and the least likely therefore, to take advantage of some of these lifesaving opportunities. It just completely stunned me, Eric, that this kind of thing could happen and that what should have been a shared sense of working against the real enemy, which was the SARS-CoV-2 virus became instead a polarized, divisive, vitriolic separation of people into separate camps that were many times driven more by politics than by any other real evidence. It made me begin to despair for where we're headed as a country if we can't figure out how to turn this around.Francis Collins (05:11):And I hadn't really considered it until Covid how serious this was and then I couldn't look away. And so, I felt if I have a little bit of credibility after having stepped down after 12 years as the NIH Director and maybe a chance to influence a few people. I just have to try to do something to point out the dangers here and then to offer some suggestions about what individuals can do to try to get us back on track. And that's what this book is all about. And yeah, it's called The Road to Wisdom because that's really how I want to think of all this in terms of truth and science and faith and trust. They all kind of give you the opportunities to acquire wisdom. Wisdom is of course knowledge, but it's not just knowledge, it's also understanding it has a moral character to it. It involves sophisticated judgment about difficult situations where there isn't an obvious answer. We need a lot more of that, it seems we're at short supply.Deconvoluting TruthEric Topol (06:13):Well, what I really loved about the book among many things was how you broke things down in just a remarkably thoughtful way. So truth, you have this great diagram like a target with the four different components.in the middle, necessary truth. And then as you go further out, firmly established facts, then uncertainty and then opinion, and truth is not a dichotomous by any means. And you really got that down and you explained each of these different facets of truth with great examples. And so, this among many other things that you broke down, it wasn't just something that you read somewhere, you really had to think this through and perhaps this experience that we all went through, but especially you. But because you bring so much of the book back to the pandemic at times with each of the four domains, so that and the spider web. The spider web of where your core beliefsare and then the ones further out on the web and you might be able to work on somebody out further periphery, but it's pretty hard if you're going to get to them in the middle where their main thing is science is untrustworthy or something like that.Eric Topol (07:36):So how did you synthesize these because the graphics are quite extraordinary?Francis Collins (07:44):Well, I will say the artist for the graphics is a remarkable graphic design student at the University of Michigan who happens to be my granddaughter. So it was nice having that ability to have my scratches turned into something actually looks like artwork. The concepts I got to say, Eric, I was feeling pretty unsure of myself. I never took a course in philosophy. I know there are people who've spent their entire careers going all the way back to Socrates and on up until now about what does truth mean and here's this scientist guy who's trying to say, well, let me tell you what I think about it. I'm glad to hear that you found these circles useful. They have been very useful for me and I hadn't thought about it much until I tried to put it in some sort of framework and a lot of the problems we have right now where somebody says, well, that might be true for you, but it's not true for me, that's fine if you're talking about an opinion, like whether that movie was really good or not.Francis Collins (08:43):But it's not fine if it's about an established fact, like the fact that climate change is real and that human activity is the main contributor to the fact that we've warmed up dramatically since 1950. I'm sorry, that's just true. It doesn't care how you feel about it, it's just true. So that zone of established facts is where I think we have to re-anchor ourselves again when something's in that place. I'm sorry, you can't just decide you don't like it, but in our current climate and maybe postmodernism has crept in all kinds of ways we're not aware of, the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth even seems to be questioned in some people's minds. And that is the path towards a terrible future if we can't actually decide that we have, as Jonathan Rauch calls it, a constitution of knowledge that we can depend on, then where are we?Eric Topol (09:37):Well, and I never heard of the term old facts until the pandemic began and you really dissect that issue and like you, I never had anticipated there would be, I knew there was an anti-science, anti-vaccine sector out there, but the fact that it would become so strong, organized, supported, funded, and vociferous, it's just looking back just amazing. I do agree with the statement you made earlier as we were talking and in the book, “the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid in record time as one of the greatest medical achievements in human history.” And you mentioned besides the Kaiser Family Foundation, but the Commonwealth Fund, a bipartisan entity saved three million lives in the US, eighteen million hospitalizations. I mean it's pretty extraordinary. So besides Covid, which we may come back to, but you bring in everything, you bring in AI. So for example, you quoted the fellow from Google who lost his job and you have a whole conversation with Blake Lemoine and maybe you can give us obviously, where is AI in the truth and science world? Where do you stand there and what were you thinking when you included his very interesting vignette?Perspective on A.I.Francis Collins (11:17):Well, I guess I was trying to talk about where are we actually at the point of AGI (artificial general intelligence) having been achieved? That is the big question. And here's Blake Lemoine who claimed based on this conversation that I quote in the book between him and the Google AI apparatus called LaMDA. Some pretty interesting comments where LaMDA is talking about having a soul and what its soul looks like and it's a portal to all sorts of other dimensions, and I can sort of see why Blake might've been taken in, but I can also see why a lot of people said, oh, come on, this is of course what an AI operation would say just by scanning the internet and picking out what it should say if it's being asked about a soul. So I was just being a little provocative there. My view of AI, Eric, is that it's applications to science and medicine are phenomenal and we should embrace them and figure out ways to speed them up in every way we can.Francis Collins (12:17):I mean here at NIH, we have the BRAIN Initiative that's trying to figure out how your brain works with those 86 billion neurons and all their connections. We're never going to sort that out without having AI tools to help us. It's just too complicated of a problem. And look what AI is doing and things like imaging radiologists are going to be going out of business and the pathologists may not be too far behind because when it comes to image analysis, AI is really good at that, and we should celebrate that. It's going to improve the speed and accuracy of all kinds of medical applications. I think what we have to worry about, and I'm not unique in saying this, is that AI when applied to a lot of things kind of depends on what's known and goes and scrapes through the internet to pull that out. And there's a lot of stuff on the internet that's wrong and a lot of it that's biased and certainly when it comes to things like healthcare, the bias in our healthcare system, health disparities, inadequacies, racial inequities are all in there too, and if we're going to count on AI to fix the system, it's building on a cracked foundation.Francis Collins (13:18):So we have to watch out for that kind of outcome. But for the most part, generative AI it's taking really exciting difficult problems and turning them into solutions, I'm all for it, but let's just be very careful here as we watch how it might be incorporating information that's wrong and we won't realize it and we'll start depending on it more than we should.Breathtaking AdvancesEric Topol (13:42):Yeah, no, that's great. And you have some commentary on all the major fronts that we're seeing these days. Another one that is a particularly apropos is way back when you were at Michigan and the years before that when you were warming up to make some seminal gene discoveries and cystic fibrosis being perhaps the first major one. You circle back in the book to CRISPR genome editing and how the success story to talk about some extraordinary science to be able to have a remedy, a cure potentially for cystic fibrosis. So maybe you could just summarize that. I mean that's in your career to see that has to be quite remarkable.Francis Collins (14:32):It is breathtaking, Eric. I mean I sort of like to think of three major developments just in the last less than 20 years that I never dreamed would happen in my lifetime. One was the ability to make stem cells from people who are walking around from a skin biopsy or a blood sample that are pluripotent. My whole lab studies diabetes, our main approach is to take induced pluripotent stem cells from people whose phenotypes we know really well and differentiate them into beta cells that make insulin and see how we can figure out how the genetics and other aspects of this determine whether something is going to work properly or not. I mean that's just astounding. The second thing is the ability to do single cell biology.Francis Collins (15:16):Which really 15 years ago you just had to have a bunch of cells and studying diabetes, we would take a whole eyelid and grind it up and try to infer what was there, ridiculous. Now we can look at each cell, we even can look at each cell in terms of what's its neighbor, does the beta cell next to an alpha cell behave the same way as a beta cell next to a duct? We can answer those questions, and of course the third thing is CRISPR and gene editing and of course the first version of CRISPR, which is the knockout of a gene was exciting enough, but the ability to go in and edit without doing a double stranded break and actually do a search and replace operation is what I'm truly excited about when it comes to rare genetic diseases including one that we work on progeria, which is this dramatic form of premature aging that is caused almost invariably by a C to T mutation in exon 11 of the LMNA gene and for which we have a viable strategy towards a human clinical trial of in vivo gene editing for kids with this disease in the next two years.Eric Topol (16:24):Yeah, it's just the fact that we were looking at potential cures for hundreds and potentially even thousands of diseases where there was never a treatment. I mean that's astounding in itself, no less, the two other examples. The fact that you can in a single cell, you can not only get the sequence of DNA and RNA and methylation and who would've ever thought, and then as you mentioned, taking white cells from someone's blood and making pluripotent stem cells. I mean all these things are happening now at scale and you capture this in the book. On Humility and Trust Now the other thing that you do that I think is unique to you, I don't know if it's because of your background in growing up in Staunton, Virginia, a very different type of world, but you have a lot of humility in the book. You go over how you got snickered by Bill Maher, how you had a graduate student who was fabricating images and lots of things, how you might not have communicated about Covid perhaps as well as could. A lot of our colleagues are not able to do that. They don't ever have these sorts of things happening to them. And this humility which comes across especially in the chapter on trust where you break down who do you trust, humility is one of the four blocks as you outlined, competence, integrity, and aligned valueSo maybe can you give us a little brief lesson on humility?Eric Topol (18:06):Because it's checkered throughout the book and it makes it this personal story that you're willing to tell about yourself, which so few of us are willing to do.Francis Collins (18:17):Well, I don't want to sound proud about my humility. That would not be a good thing because I'm not, but thanks for raising it. I do think when we consider one of the reasons we decide to trust somebody, that it does have that humility built into it. Somebody who's willing to say, I don't know. Somebody's willing to say I'm an expert on this issue, but that other issue you just asked me about, I don't know any more than anybody else and you should speak to someone else. We don't do that very well. We tend to plunge right in and try to soak it up. I do feel when it comes to Covid, and I talk about this in the book a bit, that I was one of those trying to communicate to the public about what we think are going to be the ways to deal with this worst pandemic in more than a century.Francis Collins (19:06):And I wish Eric, I had said more often what I'm telling you today is the best that the assembled experts can come up with, but the data we have to look at is woefully inadequate. And so, it very well could be that what I'm telling you is wrong, when we get more data, I will come back to you as soon as we have something better and we'll let you know, but don't be surprised if it's different and that will not mean that we are jerking you around or we don't know what we're talking about. It's like this is how science works. You are watching science in real time, even though it's a terrible crisis, it's also an opportunity to see how it works. I didn't say that often enough and neither did a lot of the other folks who were doing the communicating. Of course, the media doesn't like to give you that much time to say those things as you well know, but we could have done a better job of preparing people for uncertainty and maybe there would've been less of a tendency for people to just decide, these jokers don't know what they're talking about.Francis Collins (20:10):I'm going to ignore them from now on. And that was part of what contributed to those 230,000 unnecessary deaths, it was just people losing their confidence in the information they were hearing. That's a source of grief from my part.His Diagnosis And Treatment for Prostate CancerEric Topol (20:24):Well, it's great and a lesson for all of us. And the other thing that along with that is remarkable transparency about your own health, and there's several things in there, but one that coincides. You mentioned in the book, of course, you wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post back in April 2024 about your diagnosis of prostate cancer. So you touched on it in the book and maybe you could just update us about this because again, you're willing to tell your story and trying to help others by the experiences that you've been through.Francis Collins (21:00):Well, I sure didn't want to have that diagnosis happen, but once it did, it certainly felt like an opportunity for some education. We men aren't that good about talking about issues like this, especially when it involves the reproductive system. So going out and being public and saying, yep, I had a five year course of watching to see if something was happening, and then the slow indolent cancer suddenly decided it wasn't slow and indolent anymore. And so, I'm now having my prostate removed and I think I'm a success story, a poster boy for the importance of screening. If I hadn't gone through that process of PSA followed by imaging by MRI followed by targeted biopsies, so you're actually sampling the right place to see if something's going on. I probably would know nothing about it right now, and yet incubating within me would be a Gleason category 9 prostate cancer, which has a very high likelihood if nothing was done to become metastatic.Francis Collins (22:03):So I wanted that story to be out there. I wanted men who were squeamish about this whole topic to say, maybe this is something to look into. And I've heard a bunch of follow-ups from individuals, but I don't know how much of it impact it hit. I'm glad to say I'm doing really well. I'm four months out now from the surgery, it is now the case I'm pretty much back to the same level of schedule and energy that I had beforehand, and I'm very happy to say that the post-op value of PSA, which is the best measure to see whether you in fact are now cancer free was zero, which is a really nice number.Eric Topol (22:45):Wow. Well, the prostate is the curse of men, and I wish we could all have an automated prostatectomy so we don't have to deal with this. It's just horrible.Francis Collins (22:58):It was done by a robot. It wasn't quite automated, I have stab wounds to prove that the robot was actually very actively doing what it needed to do, but they healed quickly.The Promise of Music As Therapy in MedicineEric Topol (23:11):Right. Well, this gets me to something else that you're well known for throughout your career as a musician, a guitarist, a singer, and recently you hooked up with Renée Fleming, the noted opera singer, and you've been into this music is therapy and maybe you can tell us about that. It wasn't necessarily built up much in the book because it's a little different than the main agenda, but I think it's fascinating because who doesn't like music? I mean, you have to be out there if you don't enjoy music, but can you tell us more about that?Francis Collins (23:53):Yeah, I grew up in a family where music was very much what one did after dinner, so I learned to play keyboard and then guitar, and that's always been a source of joy and also a source of comfort sometimes when you were feeling a bit down or going through a painful experience. I think we all know that experience where music can get into your heart and your soul in a way that a lot of other things can't. And the whole field of music therapy is all about that, but it's largely been anecdotal since about World War II when it got started. And music therapists will tell you sometimes you try things that work and sometimes they don't and it's really hard to know ahead of time what's going to succeed. But now we have that BRAIN Initiative, which is pushing us into whole new places as far as the neuroscience of the brain, and it's really clear that music has a special kind of music room in the brain that evolution has put there for an important reason.Francis Collins (24:47):If we understood that we could probably make music therapy even more scientifically successful and maybe even get third parties to pay for it. All of this became opportunity for building a lot more visibility because of making friends withRenée Fleming, who I hadn't really known until a famous dinner party in 2015 where we both ended up singing to a trio of Supreme Court justices trying to cheer them up after a bent week. And she has become such an incredible partner in this. She's trained herself pretty significantly in neuroscience, and she's a convener and an articulate spokesperson. So over the course of that, we built a whole program called Sound Health that now has invested an additional $35 million worth NIH research to try to see how we can bring together music therapy, musician performers and neuroscientists to learn from each other, speak each other's language and see what we could learn about this particularly interesting input to the human brain that has such power on us and maybe could be harnessed to do even more good for people with chronic pain or people with PTSD, people with dementia where music seems to bring people back to life who'd otherwise seem to have disappeared into the shadows.Francis Collins (26:09):It's phenomenal what is starting to happen here, but we're just scratching the surface.The Big Miss vs Hepatitis CEric Topol (26:14):Well, I share your enthusiasm for that. I mean, it's something that you could think of that doesn't have a whole lot of side effects, but could have a lot of good. Yeah. Well, now before I get back to the book, I did want to cover one other relatively recent op-ed late last year that you wrote about Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C, one of the most important medical advances in the 21st century that we're squandering. Can you tell us about that? Because I think a lot of people don't realize this is a big deal.Francis Collins (26:47):It's a really big deal, and I confess I'm a little obsessed about it. So yes, you may regret bringing it up because I'm really going to want to talk about what the opportunity is here, and I am still the lead for the White House in an initiative to try to find the 4 million Americans who are already infected with this virus and get access to them for treatment. The treatment is fantastic, as you just said, one of the most major achievements of medical research, one pill a day for 12 weeks, 95% cure in the real world, essentially no side effects, and yet the cost is quite high and the people who need it many times do not have great healthcare and maybe also in difficult circumstances because you get hepatitis C from infected blood. And the many ways that happens these days are from shared needles from people who are experimenting with intravenous drugs, but they are family too, and many of them now recovering from that, face the irony of getting over their opioid addiction and then looking down the barrel of a really awful final couple of years dying of liver failure. I watched my brother-in-law die of hepatitis C, and it was just absolutely gruesome and heartbreaking.Francis Collins (28:04):So this isn't right. And on top of that, Eric, the cost of all this for all those folks who are going to get into liver failure need a transplant or develop liver cancer, this is the most common cause now of liver cancer it is astronomical in the tens of billions of dollars. So you can make a very compelling case, and this is now in the form of legislation sponsored by Senators Cassidy and Van Hollen that in a five-year program we could find and cure most of those people saving tens of thousands of lives and we would save tens of billions of dollars in just 10 years in terms of healthcare that we will not have to pay for. What's not to love here? There's a lot of things that have to be worked out to make it happen. One thing we've already done is to develop, thanks to NIH and FDA, a point of care viral RNA finger stick test for Hep C. You get an answer in less than an hour.Francis Collins (29:00):FDA approved that the end of June. That was a big crash program so you can do test and treat in one visit, which is phenomenally helpful for marginalized populations. The other thing we need to do is to figure out how to pay for this and this subscription model, which was piloted in Louisiana, looks like it ought to work for the whole nation. Basically, you ask the companies Gilead and AbbVie to accept a lump sum, which is more than what they're currently making for Medicaid patients and people who are uninsured and people in the prison system and Native Americans and then make the pills available to those four groups for free. They do fine. The companies come out on this and the cost per patient plummets and it gives you the greatest motivation you can imagine to go and find the next person who's infected because it's not going to cost you another dime for their medicine, it's already paid for. That's the model, and I would say the path we're on right now waiting for the congressional budget office to give the final score, it's looking pretty promising we're going to get this done by the end of this year.The PledgeEric Topol (30:04):Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, your work there alone is of monumental importance. Now I want to get back to the book the way you pulled it all together. By the way, if anybody's going to write a book about wisdom, it ought to be you, Francis. You've got a lot of it, but you had to think through how are we going to change because there's a lot of problems as you work through the earlier chapters and then the last chapter you come up with something that was surprising to me and that was a pledge for the Road to Wisdom. A pledge that we could all sign, which is just five paragraphs long and basically get on board about these four critical areas. Can you tell us more about the pledge and how this could be enacted and help the situation? Francis Collins (31:03):Well, I hope it can. The initial version of this book, I wrote a long piece about what governments should do and what institutions should do and what universities should do and what K through 12 education should do. And then I thought they're not reading this book and I'm not sure any of those folks are really that motivated to change the status quo. Certainly, politicians are not going to solve our current woes. It seems that politics is mostly performance these days and it's not really about governance. So if there's going to be a chance of recovering from our current malaise, I think it's got to come from the exhausted middle of the country, which is about two thirds of us. We're not out there in the shrill screaming edges of the left and the right we're maybe tempted to just check out because it just seems so discouraging, but we're the solution.Francis Collins (31:56):So the last chapter is basically a whole series of things that I think an individual could start to do to turn this around. Beginning with doing a little of their own house cleaning of their worldview to be sure that we are re-anchoring to things like objective truths and to loving your neighbor instead of demonizing your neighbor. But yeah, it does go through a number of those things and then it does suggest as a way of making this not just a nice book to read, but something where you actually decide to make a commitment. Look at this pledge. I've tried the pledge out on various audiences so far and I haven't yet really encountered anybody who said, well, those are ridiculous things to ask of people. They're mostly things that make a lot of sense, but do require a commitment. That you are, for instance, you're not going to pass around information on social media in other ways unless you're sure it's true because an awful lot of what's going on right now is this quick tendency for things that are absolutely wrong and maybe anger inducing or fear inducing to go viral where something that's true almost lands with a thud.Francis Collins (33:07):Don't be part of that, that's part of this, but also to make an honest effort to reach out to people who have different views from you. Don't stay in your bubble and try to hear their concerns. Listen, not that you're listening in order to give a snappy response, but listen, so you're really trying to understand. We do far too little of that. So the pledge asks people to think about that, and there is a website now which will be as part of the book up on the Braver Angels website and Braver Angels is a group that has made its mission trying to bring together these divided parties across our country and I'm part of them, and you can then go and sign it there and make a public statement that this is who I am, and it will also give you a whole lot of other resources you could start to explore to get engaged in being part of the solution instead of just shaking your head. I think what we're trying to do is to get people to go beyond the point of saying, this isn't the way it should be to saying, this isn't the way I should be. I'm going to try to change myself as part of fixing our society.Eric Topol (34:14):Well, I'm on board for this and I hope it creates a movement. This is as you tell the stories in the book, like the fellow that you wrangled with about the pandemic and how you listened to him and it changed your views and you changed his views and this is the health of different opinions and perspectives and we got to get back there. It used to be that way more at least it wasn't always perfect, and as you said in the book, we all have some entrenched biases. We're never going to get rid of all of them, but your wisdom about the road, the pledge here is I think masterful. So I just want to pass on along and I hope listeners will go to the Brave for Angels website and sign up because if we got millions of people to help you on this, that would say a lot about a commitment to a renewed commitment to the way it should be, not the way it is right now. Well, I've covered a bunch of things, of course, Francis, but did I miss something that you're passionate about or in the book or anything that you want to touch on?Francis Collins (35:32):Oh my goodness, yeah. You did cover a lot of ground here, including things that I didn't pay much attention to in the book, but I was glad to talk to you about. No, I think we got a pretty good coverage. The one topic in the book that will maybe appeal particularly to believers is a whole chapter about faith because I am concerned that people of faith have been particularly vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation, and yet they stand on a foundation of principles that ought to be the best antidote to most of the meanness that's going on, and just trying to encourage them to recall that and then build upon the strength that they carry as a result of their faith traditions to try to be part of the solution as well.Eric Topol (36:12):I'm so glad you mentioned that. It's an important part of the book, and it is also I think something that you were able to do throughout your long tenure at NIH Director that you were able to connect to people across the aisle. You had senators and the Republicans that were so supportive of your efforts to lead NIH and get the proper funding, and it's a unique thing that you're able to connect with people of such different backgrounds, people of really deep commitment to religion and faith and everything else. And that's one of the other things that we talk about Francis here, and many times I gather is we don't have you at the helm anymore at NIH, and we're worried. We're worried because you're a unique diplomat with all this heavy wisdom and it's pretty hard to simulate your ability to keep the NIH whole and to build on it. Do you worry about it at all?Francis Collins (37:23):Well, I was privileged to have those 12 years, but I think it was time to get a new perspective in there, and I appreciate you saying those nice things about my abilities. Monica Bertagnolli is also a person of great skill, and I think on the hill she rapidly acquired a lot of fans by her approach, by some of her background. She's from Wyoming, she's a cancer surgeon. She's got a lot of stories to tell that are really quite inspiring. I think though it's just a very difficult time. She walked in at a point where the partisan attitudes about medical research, which we always hoped would kind of stay out of the conversation and become so prominent, a lot of it politically driven, nasty rhetoric on the heels of Covid, which spills over into lots of other areas of medical research and is truly unfortunate. So she's got a lot to deal with there, but I'm not sure I would be much better than she is in trying to continue stay on message, tell the stories about how medical research is saving lives and alleviating suffering, and we're just getting started, and she does that pretty well.Francis Collins (38:34):I just hope the people who need to listen are in a listening mood.Eric Topol (38:38):Yeah. Well, that's great to hear your perspective. Well, I can't thank you enough for our conversation and moreover for a friendship that's extended many decades now. We're going to be following not just your progeria research and all the other things that you're up to because juggling a bunch of things still, it isn't like you're slowed down at all. And thanks so much for this book. I think it's a gift. I think it's something that many people will find is a pretty extraordinary, thoughtful and easy read. I mean, it's something that I found that you didn't write it for in technical jargon. You wrote it for the public, you wrote it for non-scientists, non-medical people, and I think hopefully that's what's going to help it get legs in terms of what's needed, which is a sign the darn pledge. Thank you.Francis Collins (39:42):Eric, thank you. It has been a privilege being your friend for all these years, and this was a really nice interview and I appreciate that you already had carefully read the book and asked some great questions that were fun to try to answer. So thanks a lot.*******************************************************Thanks for listening, reading or watching!The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Please share this post/podcast with your friends and network if you found it informative!Voluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for 2023 and 2024.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

What does an unbreakable bond look like to you? What characteristics embody an unbreakable bond? Do you have an unbreakable bond with yourself? These are some questions we wanted to tackle on today's episode along with the idea of the Cartesian Crisis that describes the inability to be sure of anything—scientific claims, the basic facts of historical events, the degree to which a consensus is actually accepted by others. Understanding the potential roles of discourse and absolutes in belief especially around our political climate right now is important to talk about. We'll also talk about child rearing, core values and purpose of course, and where we both stand with sharing our political views on social media.   ---------------------   Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts   “I love these conversations!” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing the show. This helps us support more people in their efforts to create a meaningful life. Also, if you haven't already done so, subscribe to our WTHN Newsletter!   Join the WTHN Membership Here! For additional support, you can apply for 1:1 coaching with Lauren by clicking here. Or, you can join the waitlist for our next round of WTHN Coaching by clicking here.   ---------------------   Time Stamps:   (1:34) Jordan Peterson on Exodus (4:24) Last Week's Episode (6:31) The Cartesian Crisis (14:06) RFK Jr. Endorsing Trump (21:06) Raising Kids and Different Paths (22:31) Characteristics of An Unbreakable Bond (34:16) From Cold Plunge To Create (37:51) Making Life More Difficult (41:31) Unbreakable Bond With Yourself First (53:41) Our Core Values and Purpose (57:56) Our Disagreement Over Talking About Politics (1:03:38) Ember and Systems (1:04:26) Upcoming Relationship Masterclass --------------------- Join Our Free WTHN Facebook Group   Follow Lauren on Instagram   Follow Joseph on Instagram   Follow WTHN on Instagram

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Free Will and Dodging Anvils: AIXI Off-Policy, published by Cole Wyeth on September 1, 2024 on LessWrong. This post depends on a basic understanding of history-based reinforcement learning and the AIXI model. I am grateful to Marcus Hutter and the lesswrong team for early feedback, though any remaining errors are mine. The universal agent AIXI treats the environment it interacts with like a video game it is playing; the actions it chooses at each step are like hitting buttons and the percepts it receives are like images on the screen (observations) and an unambiguous point tally (rewards). It has been suggested that since AIXI is inherently dualistic and doesn't believe anything in the environment can "directly" hurt it, if it were embedded in the real world it would eventually drop an anvil on its head to see what would happen. This is certainly possible, because the math of AIXI cannot explicitly represent the idea that AIXI is running on a computer inside the environment it is interacting with. For one thing, that possibility is not in AIXI's hypothesis class (which I will write M). There is not an easy patch because AIXI is defined as the optimal policy for a belief distribution over its hypothesis class, but we don't really know how to talk about optimality for embedded agents (so the expectimax tree definition of AIXI cannot be easily extended to handle embeddedness). On top of that, "any" environment "containing" AIXI is at the wrong computability level for a member of M: our best upper bound on AIXI's computability level is Δ02 = limit-computable (for an ε-approximation) instead of the Σ01 level of its environment class. Reflective oracles can fix this but at the moment there does not seem to be a canonical reflective oracle, so there remains a family of equally valid reflective versions of AIXI without an objective favorite. However, in my conversations with Marcus Hutter (the inventor of AIXI) he has always insisted AIXI would not drop an anvil on its head, because Cartesian dualism is not a problem for humans in the real world, who historically believed in a metaphysical soul and mostly got along fine anyway. But when humans stick electrodes in our brains, we can observe changed behavior and deduce that our cognition is physical - would this kind of experiment allow AIXI to make the same discovery? Though we could not agree on this for some time, we eventually discovered the crux: we were actually using slightly different definitions for how AIXI should behave off-policy. In particular, let ξAI be the belief distribution of AIXI. More explicitly, I will not attempt a formal definition here. The only thing we need to know is that M is a set of environments which AIXI considers possible. AIXI interacts with an environment by sending it a sequence of actions a1,a2,... in exchange for a sequence of percepts containing an observation and reward e1=o1r1,e2=o2r2,... so that action at precedes percept et. One neat property of AIXI is that its choice of M satisfies ξAIM (this trick is inherited with minor changes from the construction of Solomonoff's universal distribution). Now let Vπμ be a (discounted) value function for policy π interacting with environment μ, which is the expected sum of discounted rewards obtained by π. We can define the AIXI agent as By the Bellman equations, this also specifies AIXI's behavior on any history it can produce (all finite percept strings have nonzero probability under ξAI). However, it does not tell us how AIXI behaves when the history includes actions it would not have chosen. In that case, the natural extension is so that AIXI continues to act optimally (with respect to its updated belief distribution) even when some suboptimal actions have previously been taken. The philosophy of this extension is that AIXI acts exactly as if...

Even when the boss is away, the show must go on, so Dan slid back behind the guest mic and teamed up with Tom to hunt down the freshest of this week's hacks. It was a bit of a chore, with a couple of computer crashes and some side-quests down a few weird rabbit holes, but we managed to get things together in the end. Tune in and you'll hear us bemoan HOAs and celebrate one ham's endless battle to outwit them, no matter what the golf cart people say about his antennas. Are you ready to say goodbye to the magnetic stripe on your credit card? We sure are, but we're not holding our breath yet. Would you 3D print a 55-gallon drum? Probably not, but you almost can with a unique Cartesian-polar hybrid printer. And, if you think running MS-DOS on a modern laptop is hard, guess again -- or, maybe you just have to get really lucky. We also took a look at a digital watch with a beautiful display, a hacked multimeter, modern wardriving tools, switchable magnets, and debate the eternal question of v-slot wheels versus linear bearings. And finally, you won't want to miss our look at what's new with 3D scanning, and the first installment of Kristina's new "Boss Byproducts" series, which delves into the beauty of Fordite.

In Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC, she said that “My girl Kamala Harris… is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.” We discuss the Cartesian crisis as coined by Bret Weinstein, and what we're to do when it seems like everyone is watching a different movie about reality. Bret defines the Cartesian crisis - https://x.com/thedarkhorsepod/status/1776277113852907986 All Matt's Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael's Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav

In this 239th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.In this week's episode, we discuss AI, specifically how Grok responded to the prompt “image of Cartesian crisis,” whether AI is conscious, and whether it makes art. What is art, and are humans required to make it, or do search and memory suffice? Not art: the rendering of the national anthem at the Democratic National Convention. Speaking of which: what demographic is most strongly democratic? Answer: Childless, never married women ages 20 – 45. We discuss how this affects policy and society. And: the quasi-announcement that Kennedy may leave the presidential race. Finally—Zack is going off on new adventures.*****Our sponsors:Caraway: Non-toxic, beautiful, light ceramic cookware. Go to Carawayhome.com/DarkHorse for 10% off your order.ARMRA: Colostrum is our first food, and can help restore your health and resilience as an adult. Go to www.tryarmra.com/DARKHORSE to get 15% off your first order.Seed: Start a new healthy habit today with Seed probiotics. Use code 25DarkHorse at https://seed.com/darkhorse to get 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic.*****Join us on Locals! Get access to our Discord server, exclusive live streams, live chats for all streams, and early access to many podcasts: https://darkhorse.locals.com/Heather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.comOur book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://a.co/d/dunx3atCheck out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org*****Mentioned in this episode:The national anthem by the women's caucus at DNC: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1825937644951650319Maternal Love and the Mama Bear: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/maternal-love-and-the-mama-bearBrides of the State, by David Samuels in UnHerd: https://unherd.com/2024/08/the-march-of-kamalas-brides/Rescue the Republic – September 29 on the National Mall: https://jointheresistance.orgSupport the Show.

Today I am delighted to share this imperfectly perfect conversation with Alan Rayner who is an Evolutionary Ecologist who came to talk to me on the Flourishing Education podcast about natural inclusion. Alan and I had a wonderful hour together and he shared his education and his work and how he found it difficult because his understanding of the world is so different from our Cartesian, Newtonian, reductionist world. Alan also shared why his views as an evolutionist are different from those of Darwin and why he believes we ARE NOT inherently selfish and that natural selection is not as Darwin described it the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life. We also talked about language and how using certain expressions such as 'connection to nature' are problematic as it suggests that nature is an other that we are not included in when we are in fact a vibrant, living expression of the nature we inhabit. We also discuss 'competitiveness', being 'busy' and needing to earn a living (amongst many other things). I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Cartesian Theory is essential for understanding the foundations of modern philosophy, particularly in epistemology and metaphysics, and for exploring the mind-body problem. Cartesianism is a philosophical and scientific system founded on the ideas of René Descartes. It emphasizes rationalism, believing knowledge can be derived through reason and innate ideas rather than sensory experience. Descartes' method of systematic doubt and his famous I think, therefore I am statement are fundamental to Cartesian thought. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/library-of-philosophy--5939304/support.

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in '80s and they break down its themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence retains the setting and characters of its predecessor, but Mamoru Oshii's sequel film is in every way an intensification of the first film. Where Ghost in the Shell balanced its philosophical introspection with decisive bursts of action, Innocence wends its way through ontology, Eastern philosophy, ecclesiastical blank verse, and Buddhist poetry before it reaches its kinetic and ambivalent conclusion. With the Major having transcended her life at Section 9, Batou is left to clean up the messes of the transgressive elite in New Port City. But when a trail of bodies leads him and his partner Togusa through a maze of warped reality, he'll have to decide who is innocent and who are the real victims.In this episode, we discuss the brutal world of the second GITS film, its blend of 2D and 3D animation, its Godardian mien, the preponderance of literary allusion, the difficulty we have in empathizing with the voiceless, the persistent question of Cartesian doubt, Motoko a Miltonic Satan, becoming the anti-elephant, and whether the body truly defines the self. We also talk about A Cyborg Manifesto, Billy Madison anime, Trek being the opposite of cyberpunk, cyborb Jim Caviezel, unimpressed girlfriends, Sexbots Gone Wild, proto-Stepford Wives, Hot Batou Summer, mullet implants, lies about Phineas Gage, swearing at Taco Bell trash cans, seagulls are cyberpunk, needs more explosions, loving pulling your arms off, and Lyda's GITS tie-in novel!Hope you like the color orange!Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!http://twitch.tv/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/49bzqdpBpxBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

This analysis covers Aristotelian substance theory, examining primary and secondary substances, four causes, essence, form and matter, and accidents in philosophy.Explores Aristotle's categories, potentiality and actuality, and applications in biology and ethics. The concept of soul (psyche) is discussed alongside comparisons with atomism. Developments through medieval thought, Cartesian dualism, and empiricist critiques, and investigates Kantian perspectives, bundle theory, and process philosophy.The role of Aristotelian concepts in contemporary metaphysics and scientific realism, focusing on fundamental questions about reality, persistence, and the nature of properties.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/philosophy-acquired--5939304/support.

The most dynamic Iron Culture duo is back in action. In this episode, Omar and Dr. Trexler talk all about pain, injury, and factors that impact the relationship between them. Back in the day, most lifters were all-in on the “Cartesian” or “biomedical” model of pain, which posits that pain is a simple, reliable indicator of damaged tissue causing nociceptors to send a “pain signal” to the brain. Nowadays, the “biopsychosocial” and “fear-avoidance” models are all the rage in the evidence-based lifter circles. These models are a major upgrade, but there are still some pervasive misunderstandings and misinterpretations of these models in the lifting world. In this episode, Omar and Dr. Trexler try to provide some clarity on the matter using research, anecdote, and a decade-old textbook on Dr. Trexler's bookshelf.

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in '80s and they break down its themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!It's one of the most recognizable properties in cyberpunk media, a franchise that blew down the doors between Japan and America and helped popularize manga and anime in the West. It presents a world of cyborg agents using future technology to fight against villains both foreign and domestic, but it also explores the existential issues raised by the interchangeability of data and the mind. And in 1995, director Mamoru Oshii directed the franchise's first ground-breaking feature film, Ghost in the Shell.In this episode, we discuss the phenomenon of Ghost in the shell as a franchise, the instant-classic status of Oshii's film, the role of the mind in identity, the personhood of cyborgs and AI, the cyborg spectre of Cartesian doubt, the film's religious symbolism, its Bergmanesque trappings, its innate appeal to American audiences, and what it will take for GITS to evolve as a franchise. We also talk about Snow Crash parody apologism, explosions plus philosophy times boobs, telepathy powers, the film's preponderance of high beams, getting express consent before merging, trans-humanism, going weird, and Surf Draculas!What are the two helicopters?Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!http://twitch.tv/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/49bzqdpBpxBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

In this 230th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.In this week's episode, we discuss air quality in Los Angeles, and how California led the way in making catalytic converters standard in cars across the United States. Now, that regulatory apparatus is being used for less honorable ends, as legislators consider mandating the inclusion of folic acid in all tortilla products. We discuss pre- vs post-industrial diet, what mother's milk is for, whether adult Americans are sleeping well, and how reductionism helped get us into this mess. Collectively, we have a complicated mindset, mapped on to a complex system. Then: the Pentagon funded an anti-vax campaign in the Philippines during Covid. At the same time that Americans who were hesitant about the Covid vax were demonized and targeted, the government was creating vaccine hesitancy in other parts of the world. The Cartesian crisis continues.*****Our sponsors:Sundays: Dog food so tasty and healthy, even husbands swear by it. Go to www.sundaysfordogs.com/DARKHORSE to receive 35% off your first order.MDHearing: Small, effective hearing aids just $149.99 each when you buy a pair, plus free charging case. At www.ShopMDHearingAid.com, use code DH.American Hartford Gold: Get up to $5,000 of free silver on your first qualifying order. Call 866-828-1117 or text “DARKHORSE” to 998899.*****Join us on Locals! Get access to our Discord server, exclusive live streams, live chats for all streams, and early access to many podcasts: https://darkhorse.locals.com/Heather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.comOur book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://a.co/d/dunx3atCheck out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org*****Mentioned in this episode:LA Times: California wants to mandate folic acid in tortillas to help babies. Why that's bad: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-22/tortillas-folic-acid-corn-masa-californiaReuters Investigation: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/Robinson et al 2022. Factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy and reduced vaccine confidence in rural underserved populations. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1): 1-8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9702767/General Dynamics IT: https://www.gdit.comSupport the Show.

Hello Interactors, The lengthening northern days have unleashed verdant chaos in my yard and it's challenging my desire for order. Some unruly growth demands surrendering control, embracing life's rhizomatic entanglements — an invitation to honor multiplicity over singularity, relation over individuality, and emergence over stasis.Let's dig in…FERN FRENZY IN FULL FORCEThose skinny unattractive immigrants are invading. They're nudging their way through every nook and cranny stealing resources and opportunity from those already here. Before long, they'll be taking over the place. I'm talking about Leptinella squalida (Derived from the Greek "leptos" meaning slender and the Latin “squalid” meaning unattractive). That is the scientific name for a New Zealand native ground cover commonly referred to as ‘Brass buttons' and it's taking over my garden.Leptinella squalida is rhizomatous. It sends rootlike horizontal shallow subterranean stems — a rhizome — in a multitude of unpredictable directions. At various intervals in its journey, it progressively produces small nodules that send whisker roots below while sprouting shoots vertically to the surface to form miniature fern-like fronds — sometimes green and other times ‘brass' colored. Once a year it produces a yellow ‘button' blossom that can send seeds aloft leapfrogging the host to colonize another territory.I planted it in a shady moist area of my small backyard after ripping out a grass lawn. Liptinella squalida makes an even carpet that can withstand a fair bit of foot traffic, making it an attractive alternative to grass. Unfortunately, other plants can't withstand is aggressive propagation, starving them of light and nutrients. That's exactly what this exponentially expanding rhizome is doing to the slower growing, less aggressively sprawling Sedum rupestre 'Angelina' — a variety I also helped colonize from Western Europe.I suspect strict immigration laws should be applied to my little rambunctious rhizomatous island ferns. Last week I eradicated an entire section at the border with a shovel and then carefully extracted the spindly rhizomes from the starved roots and foliage of the ‘Angelina.' I'm contemplating building a subterranean Trump-like wall to resist the invaders. I may even perform widespread extirpation and dig it all up — especially given the primary section of Brass buttons have also been colonized. They are slowly being overtaken by another aggressive invasive species — clover.I didn't plan for this, but I did create the conditions for it to occur. In place of a grass lawn — which offers nothing to ecology in any shape or form — I planted a variety of low growing ground covers, sedums, and clumping ornamental grasses. Many of these ground covers have now intermingled. Some are more dominant in areas than others forming a diverse kaleidoscope of height, color, and texture. There's little strict cartesian geometric control I can apply to this tufted tapestry without hard physical barriers. And even then, their airborne spores can gleefully fly where the wind may carry them — oblivious to any tyrannical terrestrial territorial triangulations I may map in my head.Rhizomes are their own kind of experimental map. They randomly route with their roots. Their genes map the way as MicroRNAs modulate their sway. Meanwhile, subterranean phytohormones signal route initiation and elongation in a coordinated but random multi-directional, non-linear physical cartographic network.Rhizomic networks have no real beginning or end. They make connections in a non-hierarchical, decentralized way without a single origin or terminus. It is in a continual emergent state of being in the middle of having been made and becoming something new. There is no dualistic hierarchical parent/child branching that dominates Western mental images of hierarchical networks — like a family tree or even a real tree where a trunk sprouts limbs with branches that terminate with leaves. Rhizomatous networks defy rational Cartesian logic.I've been reflecting on the tension I'm experiencing as I wrestle and reason with my garden. On the one hand, I'm drawn to the top-down control of crafting a particular order and aesthetic as an amateur landscape architect. The same desire explains my affinity for urban and transportation planning and design…and I suppose my three decades of user interface design. I like attempts at bringing clarity to complexity.Modern urban planning tries to achieve the same thing. Urban planning has historically relied on hierarchical models characterized by centralized control and top-down implementation. These traditional approaches often use structural or generative frameworks to shape and represent urban spaces. Emphasizing coherence and order, urban planning typically adheres to mapped zoning regulations and legally controlled growth patterns. The focus is usually on achieving defined end-states or visions, imposing order through marginated space with bordered zones and predetermined paths dictated by urban transportation planning policies.The same can be said for the planning of countries and states. Colonial powers imposed structured urban plans to assert control and organize territories. Their maps, laws, police, and military impose order through variegated spaces at larger scales characterized by bordered zones and throughways. This reflects a continuity in the desire to manage and control urban growth and development of entire regions and even continents.FRICTION FORMS FLUID FRAMEWORKS The rhizome rejects arborescent structures, favoring non-linear, decentralized networks and connections, incompatible with traditional models. The French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's influential "A Thousand Plateaus" introduced the "rhizome" philosophical concept - a non-hierarchical, decentralized network characterized by multiplicity, heterogeneity, and non-linearity. Challenging Western metaphysics, it proposed rethinking reality as a dynamic, interconnected assemblage, embracing a rhizomorphic approach of continuous transformation and new connections over linear thinking.Insisting on mapping reality through open-ended experimentation rather than tracing existing structures, the concept embraces spontaneous ruptures forming new connections within emergent cultural networks resembling rhizomes. Having no beginning or end, existing in a constant state of becoming, it resists linear urban narratives and stagnant pure identities. Encouraging "lines of flight," the rhizome breaks from constraints of traditional thinking. The urban as a "smooth space" occupied by the rhizome contrasts sharply with hierarchies of Cartesian power and order.Human cultures also show evidence of embracing this mode of thinking. They too form new connections regardless of imaginary borders.  Jean-Loup Amselle is a French anthropologist known for his studies on African societies, cultural hybridization, and postcolonialism. He introduced the concept of "branchement" (branching) to describe the fluid and interconnected nature of cultures that remind me of what I'm witnessing in my back yard.Amselle's analysis of the N'ko movement in West Africa, which aimed to "debranch" the Manding culture from Arabic and European influences, offers parallels to the Palestinian context and others like Sudan and Ukraine.The Palestinian struggle for self-determination and cultural preservation resists perceived Israeli/Western dominance by asserting Palestinian identity and drawing on global solidarity networks. It shows how local struggles are part of broader global narratives surrounding identities and cultures. This conflict fuels identity-based movements reflecting Amselle's "identity wars" brought on by globalization and strict mapped borders. Amselle's framework rejects fixed identities, emphasizing the interconnections shaping Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, and Arab identities. The concept of "branchement" highlights the complex entanglements of histories and global forces in the Palestinian conflict, challenging simplistic narratives of cultural purity and separation.The same desire for purity and separation is what led me to ponder border control in my own backyard. I'm even contemplating extermination. All because I saw friction at a border where one plant was not ‘plugging in' to the existing root network, but ‘debranching' another plants by taking over their lives and land.Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She's known for her interdisciplinary work on globalization, ecology, and the Anthropocene, and for her acclaimed 2005 book "Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection,"She writes, "Cultures are continually co-produced in the interaction I call 'friction': the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference."Tsing argues that global connections and universalizing projects like dominant forms of Western capitalism, science, and politics do not spread seamlessly but encounter friction and resistance when they engage with specific localities and cultures. These interactions produce new articulations and connections that challenge the universalizing claims of global forces. This, like Amselle, emphasizes the entanglement and co-production of cultures through these encounters.These "zones of awkward engagement" or "cultural friction" are sites where universals collide with particular situations, producing unexpected outcomes and articulations. That's what I witnessed between my “brass buttons” and “Angelina”.“Zones of awkward engagement” and “cultural friction” exist at a city level too as immigrant populations integrate (“plug in” or branch) into established neighborhoods. This can create “cultural friction” as neighborhoods become “zones of awkward engagement”. Zoning and racial or socio-economic redlining are attempts at legal, cartographic, and cultural purity and separation that create awkward zones of friction.But Tsing highlights the importance of collaborations and coalitions that emerge from these zones of awkward engagement. She says, "Despite imperial standards for civil society, I have wandered into coalitions built on awkwardly linked incompatibilities." These collaborations create new interests and ways of being, challenging the singularity of global forces and enabling practices of collaborative knowing and working.PLANETARY PATHS, RHIZOME ROUTESI'm starting to see that local urban frictions, be they down the street or in the streets of Cairo, Chicago, Caraco, or Cape Town, are complex entanglements of histories and global forces. They branch like rhizomes in local frictions of awkward engagement, but also branch to entire other parts of the world. My backyard is a reflection of this. I created a ‘branchement' by planting plants native to vastly separated parts of the globe — New Zealand and Western Europe.Neil Brenner is a critical urban theorist at the University of Chicago and Christian Schmid is a sociologist and urban researcher at ETH Zurich. They're known for the influential concept of "planetary urbanization." They claim urbanization processes today are no longer confined to the traditional boundaries of cities, but rather extend across the entire planetary surface.They argue the classic "city-centric" view is inadequate to capture the multiscalar and multiterritorial dynamics of contemporary urbanization.Instead, they propose that urbanization today is a planetary phenomenon that cuts across the urban/rural divide and transcends the boundaries of individual cities or metropolitan regions. Urbanization unfolds through the constant production, transformation, and operation of socio-spatial configurations at multiple geographic scales, from the body to the globe.This includes the urbanization of seemingly "non-urban" zones like oceans, deserts, and wilderness areas being operationalized and transformed through various urbanization processes. While cities remain vital arenas for urbanization processes, they are embedded within and co-constituted by broader planetary urbanization dynamics that extend far beyond their boundaries. They argue urban theory must move beyond the city as its primary unit of analysis and develop new frameworks, methodologies, and cartographies to grasp the multiscalar and multiterritorial nature of planetary urbanization.This starts by recognizing the rhizomatic interconnections and interdependencies shaping urbanization at various scales, from local to global, and the diverse socio-spatial configurations and infrastructures that form the "urbanization fabric" across the planet. They argue that the "urban" is no longer a bounded condition but a generalized, planetary condition of socio-spatial transformation.The rhizomatic approach emphasizes non-linear and decentralized networks. It offers a valuable framework for urban planning, ecological management, and cultural integration. And even my garden. Just as Leptinella squalida defies linear control in my garden, urban spaces and cultural landscapes resist traditional hierarchical planning. This perspective promotes adaptability and inclusivity, fostering environments that evolve organically and embrace multiplicity and spontaneous connections. They reject unfair dominance or ‘debranching' or mechanisms by which dominant cultures or systems attempt to appropriate, assimilate, or subjugate other cultures or elements within their sphere of influence.Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome and plateau concepts critique cultural dominance and embrace multiplicity, diversity, and coexistence without imposing dominant structures. Applying these ideas to urban integration highlights the potential for hybrid solutions and collaborative networks that recognize fluid identities and dynamic cultural interactions. Amselle's "branchement" and Tsing's "cultural friction" emphasize productive tensions from encounters, challenging narratives of purity.Randomly routing rhizomatous roots, their genes mapping the way, are like the informal settlements and migrant networks. Their sways are modulated by global flows of capital with labor signaling route initiation and elongation in random multi-directional, non-linear physical and virtual networks that reject cartographic convention. Ultimately, this rhizomatic approach aligns with Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid's concept of planetary urbanization by acknowledging the interconnected and multiscalar nature of urban and cultural processes. It calls for new frameworks to understand and address the complex socio-spatial transformations shaping our world. How do we move beyond hierarchical, top-down models that use structural frameworks to shape urban spaces through regulated mapped zones, centralized control, and predetermined paths?Instead of aiming to impose order and coherence by striving to achieve defined end-state visions of bordered, marginated spaces, how might we embrace the interconnected rhizomatous roots and vines of the global urban interlacement — without one crowding out another? Maybe it's time we accept the woven flows of cultures, resources, and infrastructures of the past — and the ever-emerging present middle of rhizomatous networks — made from interplace, the interactions of people and place. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Is consciousness an illusion? Is it just a complex set of cognitive processes without a central, subjective experience? How can we better integrate philosophy with everyday life and the arts?Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking.Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.”www.keithfrankish.comwww.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionismwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking.Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.”Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.www.keithfrankish.comwww.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionismwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking.Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.”Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.www.keithfrankish.comwww.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionismwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Is consciousness an illusion? Is it just a complex set of cognitive processes without a central, subjective experience? How can we better integrate philosophy with everyday life and the arts?Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking.Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.”www.keithfrankish.comwww.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionismwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced.I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking.Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.”Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science.www.keithfrankish.comwww.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-cognitive-science/F9996E61AF5E8C0B096EBFED57596B42www.imprint.co.uk/product/illusionismwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Today we'll be tracing the influence of dualistic cosmologies on the development of religious thought. In examining these historical narratives, we'll see how ancient beliefs influence modern religious thought. From there, we'll pivot to an examination of the concept of mind as it is understood in both historical and modern contexts. Challenging the Cartesian notion of isolated, atomic _egos_, we'll explore how the mind extends beyond the physical confines of the brain into the symbolic order of human interaction and language, mirroring the cosmic battles depicted in myths like the War in Heaven and positing a reevaluation of how ancient wisdom informs modern understanding. Transcript available at asatanistreadsthebible.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/asatanistreadsthebible/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/asatanistreadsthebible/support

Seriah is joined by the duo of engineer Jim Elvidge (author of “The Universe- Solved” and “Digital Consciousness”) and physicist Brian Geislinger (author of numerous academic papers and physics professor at Gasden State Community College) to take a deep dive on simulation theory. Topics include Nick Bostrom, Tom Campbell, Brian Whitworth, quantum mechanics, Eastern philosophy, a future advanced AI, Melvin Vopson, a connection between simulation theory and Covid-19, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, information and matter, informational entropy, life as denying physical laws, an analogy involving a cup of coffee, compressing data, the observer effect, the differences between physics at the classical scale and at the subatomic scale, quantum tunneling, quantum entanglement, patterns in nature, Albert Einstein and Relativity, Dean Radin and psi research, a video game analogy, holographic theory, cellular automaton theory, Plato's cave, Déjà vu, string theory, James Gates, quadratic equations, mathematical reality vs physical reality, time as a physical dimension, Cartesian coordinates, imaginary numbers, information theory, the book “The Invisible Gorilla”, the human memory, modeling biological behavior, optical illusions, slime mold learning, a disturbing experiment on rats, lobotomies and other extreme brain surgery, severe epilepsy, “Beacon 23” TV series, anomalous brain formation, brain damage without disability, a fascinating academic psi study, questions about free will and MRIs, explanations for precognition, a complicated prophetic dream, experiences with precognitive dreams, dream time, information sent back in time, poltergeist activity, “Mandela” effects, the nature of time, the Buddhist concept of “Maya”, possible non-existence of time/a static universe, perception and reality, the “Matrix” films, and much more! This is a fascinating discussion of simulation theory with people who can intelligently discuss it, making complex concepts understandable without ever condescending to the listeners! This is a truly exceptional episode! Recap by Vincent Treewell of The Weird Part PodcastOutro Music by Peaches & Crime with Innsmouth Town Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 102 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss diverse ideas of racial mixedness, from family-oriented models of mixed race to José Vasconcelos' and Gloria Anzaldua's idea of the ‘mestizo' heritage of Mexican people. They work through phenomenological accounts of cultural hybridity and selfhood, wondering how being multiracial pushes beyond the traditional Cartesian philosophical subject. Is mestizaje or mixed-race an identity in its own right? What are its connections to the history of colonialism and contemporary demographic trends? And, how can different relations to a mixed heritage lead to flourishing outside of white supremacist categories?Check out the episode's extended cut here! Works DiscussedLinda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera Rosie Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, “Naomi Osaka on Fighting for No. 1 at the U.S. Open”Mariana Ortega, In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the SelfNaomi Osaka, “Naomi Osaka reflects on challenges of being black and Japanese”Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude Adrian Piper, “Passing for White, Passing for Black” Carlin Romano, “A Challenge for Philosophy”José Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race Patreon | patreon.com/overthinkpodcast Website | overthinkpodcast.comInstagram & Twitter | @overthink_podEmail | Dearoverthink@gmail.comYouTube | Overthink podcastSupport the show

In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.: philosopher, Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, 20-year professor of transpersonal psychology at Burlington College, and the reason Joe and Kyle met many years ago. He talks about his early LSD experiences and how his interest in the philosophy of Plato and Alfred North Whitehead provided a framework and language for understanding a new mystical world where time and space were abstractions. He believes that while culture sees the benefits of psychedelics in economic terms, the biggest takeaway from non-ordinary states is learning that value is the essence of everything. And as this is being released on Bicycle Day, he discusses Albert Hofmann's discovery and whether or not it's fair to say that Hofmann intentionally had the experience he did on that fateful day. He also discusses: The end of Cartesian thinking and the need for a new understanding of reality that incorporates the insights of quantum mechanics How philosophy has been taught as an intellectual endeavor, and how we need to embrace the practical and conceptual side of life John Dewey and quantitative thinking, William James and pragmatism, and was Aristotle a Platonist? The novelty of the creation of LSD, and how it gave us a path to a mystical experience that wasn't culturally bound and more! For links, head to the show notes page. 

Unlock the secrets of market dynamics and decision-making efficiency with Doug Howarth, the mastermind behind the revolutionary 4D software. This episode takes you from a simple washing machine purchase to the high-stakes world of stock valuation. Discover how Doug's teenage curiosity about the Cartesian coordinate system sparked an epiphany, leading to an analytical framework that's shaking up the way entrepreneurs and investors perceive the marketplace. Ever marveled at the strategic genius of ants? Prepare to be fascinated as we draw parallels between the systematic reconnaissance of rock ants and human behaviors, especially in realms like real estate and organizational strategy. Doug's conversation stretches intellectual boundaries, offering a multidisciplinary feast of knowledge with practical applications that span from NASA to the NFL. Learn how incremental improvements can lead to significant gains, mirroring an NFL player's speed against salary increases, and dive into the birth of Hypernomics—a new field linking health, creativity, and productivity. In an era where simplifying complexity is an art, Doug demystifies the intricate field of Hypernomics, making it easily digestible without compromising its depth. This episode also delves into the artistry of stock valuation, where detailed algorithms open doors to profitable investments. For digital media enthusiasts, Doug's insights into media demand curves are nothing short of a goldmine. Tune in for a transformative journey through the landscapes of innovation, strategy, and the pursuit of peak performance. We're happy you're here! Like the pod? Visit our website! Check out our sponsor PitchDB! Start your trial on Simplified!

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: When is a mind me?, published by Rob Bensinger on April 17, 2024 on LessWrong. xlr8harder writes: In general I don't think an uploaded mind is you, but rather a copy. But one thought experiment makes me question this. A Ship of Theseus concept where individual neurons are replaced one at a time with a nanotechnological functional equivalent. Are you still you? Presumably the question xlr8harder cares about here isn't semantic question of how linguistic communities use the word "you", or predictions about how whole-brain emulation tech might change the way we use pronouns. Rather, I assume xlr8harder cares about more substantive questions like: If I expect to be uploaded tomorrow, should I care about the upload in the same ways (and to the same degree) that I care about my future biological self? Should I anticipate experiencing what my upload experiences? If the scanning and uploading process requires destroying my biological brain, should I say yes to the procedure? My answers: Yeah. Yep. Yep, this is no big deal. A productive day for me might involve doing some work in the morning, getting a sandwich at Subway, destructively uploading my brain, then texting some friends to see if they'd like to catch a movie after I finish answering e-mails. _(ツ)_/ If there's an open question here about whether a high-fidelity emulation of me is "really me", this seems like it has to be a purely verbal question, and not something that I would care about at reflective equilibrium. Or, to the extent that isn't true, I think that's a red flag that there's a cognitive illusion or confusion still at work. There isn't a special extra "me" thing separate from my brain-state, and my precise causal history isn't that important to my values. I'd guess that this illusion comes from not fully internalizing reductionism and naturalism about the mind. I find it pretty natural to think of my "self" as though it were a homunculus that lives in my brain, and "watches" my experiences in a Cartesian theater. On this intuitive model, it makes sense to ask, separate from the experiences and the rest of the brain, where the homunculus is. ("OK, there's an exact copy of my brain-state there, but where am I?") E.g., consider a teleporter that works by destroying your body, and creating an exact atomic copy of it elsewhere. People often worry about whether they'll "really experience" the stuff their brain undergoes post-teleport, or whether a copy will experience it instead. "Should I anticipate 'waking up' on the other side of the teleporter? Or should I anticipate Oblivion, and it will be Someone Else who has those future experiences?" This question doesn't really make sense from a naturalistic perspective, because there isn't any causal mechanism that could be responsible for the difference between "a version of me that exists at 3pm tomorrow, whose experiences I should anticipate experiencing" and "an exact physical copy of me that exists at 3pm tomorrow, whose experiences I shouldn't anticipate experiencing". Imagine that the teleporter is located on Earth, and it sends you to a room on a space station that looks and feels identical to the room you started in. This means that until you exit the room and discover whether you're still on Earth, there's no way for you to tell whether the teleporter worked. But more than that, there will be nothing about your brain that tracks whether or not the teleporter sent you somewhere (versus doing nothing). There isn't an XML tag in the brain saying "this is a new brain, not the original"! There isn't a Soul or Homunculus that exists in addition to the brain, that could be the causal mechanism distinguishing "a brain that is me" from "a brain that is not me". There's just the brain-state, with no remainder. All of the same functional brain-states occur whether yo...

In 2003, Oxford University philosophy professor Nick Bostrom published a paper titled Are You Living in a Computer Simulation, thus giving rise to the modern incarnation of Simulation Theory, which posits that our experienced reality is actually the product of an advanced (possibly future-self) civilization running a simulation experiment. But the paper on might have been written off as a useful thought experiment had it not been for the popularity of the 1999 film The Matrix, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month, and its two sequels, which came out the same year as Bostrom's paper. In the years since, Simulation Theory has become a lot of things to a lot of people - from a fun metaphor to explain Cartesian philosophy to college freshmen to an all-out article of faith for an increasingly doctrinaire sub-culture of futurists. How useful (or even likely) is Simulation Theory? In honor of The Matrix's birthday, John and Kelly decided to take up that question. Sources https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf https://builtin.com/hardware/simulation-theory https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/ https://www.wired.com/story/living-in-a-simulation/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/  

After decades of this self-abandonment in the name of holiness, I am disappointed with the results. I really thought that if I prayed enough, read my Bible enough, and worked on my marriage enough, I would be made healed and whole. When I survey the damage done by piling all this rock between me – all of me, including my beautiful body and my wild life force – and the Light that is Christ, I shudder. Like most folks schooled in this crazy mixture of modern, Western, Cartesian dualism and ancient Christianity, I feel disembodied. I feel separated from my sensuality, my fleshiness and, consequently, part of myself. When it comes to knowing and loving my sensuality, I am soul sick, all ‘trembling teeth and bloody hands.'  

Drew Leder a professor of Western and Eastern Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland.  Dr. Leder's work focuses on the embodied experience. He asks us to reconsider the Cartesian mind-body dualism that underlies much of contemporary Western medicine, and proposes a more holistic, yet rigorous, alternative.He has written several books on these topics including The Absent Body, and his latest  book The Healing Body: Creative Responses to Illness, Aging, and Affliction Find out more at https://www.drewleder.com/https://somaticprimer.com/https://vidyamethod.com/Remember to subscribe for more great conversations on embodiment, meditation,  somatics and more... Support the show

Joël discusses the challenges he encountered while optimizing slow SQL queries in a non-Rails application. Stephanie shares her experience with canary deploys in a Rails upgrade. Together, Stephanie and Joël address a listener's question about replacing the wkhtml2pdf tool, which is no longer maintained. The episode's main topic revolves around the concept of multidimensional numbers and their applications in software development. Joël introduces the idea of treating objects containing multiple numbers as single entities, using the example of 2D points in space to illustrate how custom classes can define mathematical operations like addition and subtraction for complex data types. They explore how this approach can simplify operations on data structures, such as inventories of T-shirt sizes, by treating them as mathematical objects. EXPLAIN ANALYZE visualizer (https://explain.dalibo.com/) Canary in a coal mine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel_species#Canaries) Episode 413: Developer Tales of Package Management (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/413) Docs for media-specific CSS (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media) Episode 386: Value Objects Revisited: The Tally Edition (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/386) Money gem (https://github.com/RubyMoney/money) Transcript: STEPHANIE: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Stephanie Minn. JOËL: And I'm Joël Quenneville. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. STEPHANIE: So, Joël, what's new in your world? JOËL: I've recently been trying to do some performance enhancements to some very slow queries. This isn't a Rails app, so we're sort of combining together a bunch of different scopes. And the way they're composing together is turning out to be really slow. And I've reached for a tool that is just really fun. It's a visualizer for SQL query plans. You can put the SQL keywords in front of a query: 'EXPLAIN ANALYZE,' and it will then output a query plan, sort of how it's going to attempt to do the work. And that might be like, oh, we're going to use this index on this table to join on this other thing, and then we're going to...maybe this is a table that we think we're going to do a sequential scan through and, you know, it builds out a whole thing. It's a big block of text, and it's kind of intimidating to look at. So, there are a few websites out there that will do this. You just paste a query plan in, and they will build you a nice, little visualization, almost like a tree of, like, tasks to be done. Oftentimes, they'll also annotate it with metadata that they pulled from the query plan. So, oh, this particular node is the really expensive one because we're doing a sequential scan of this table that has 15 million rows in it. And so, it's really useful to then sort of pinpoint what are the areas that you could optimize. STEPHANIE: Nice. I have known that you could do that EXPLAIN ANALYZE on a SQL query, but I've never had to do it before. Is this your first time, or is it just your first time using the visualizer? JOËL: I've played around with EXPLAIN ANALYZE a little bit before. Pro tip: In Rails, if you've got a scope, you can just chain dot explain on the end, and instead of running the query, it will run the EXPLAIN version of it and return the query plan. So, you don't need to, like, turn into SQL then manually run it in your database system to get the EXPLAIN. You can just tack a dot explain on there to get the query plan. It's still kind of intimidating, especially if you've got a really complex query that's...this thing might be 50 lines long of EXPLAIN with all this indentation and other stuff. So, putting it into a sort of online visualizer was really helpful for the work that I was doing. So, it was my first time using an online visualizer. There are a few out there. I'll link to the one that I used in the show notes. But I would do that again, would recommend. STEPHANIE: Nice. JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world? STEPHANIE: So, I actually just stepped away from being in the middle of doing a Rails upgrade [chuckles] and releasing it to production just a few minutes before getting on to record with you on this podcast. And the reason I was able to do that, you know, without feeling like I had to just monitor to see how it was going is because I'm on a project where the client is using canary deploys. And I was so pleasantly surprised by how easy it made this experience where we had decided to send the canary release earlier this morning. And the way that they have it set up is that the canary goes to 10% of traffic. 10% of the users were on Rails 7 for their sessions. And we saw a couple of errors in our error monitoring service. And we are like, "Okay, like, let's take a look at this, see what's going on." And it turns out it was not too big of a deal because it had to do with, like, a specific page. And, for the most part, if a user did encounter this error, they probably wouldn't again after refreshing because they had, like, a 90% chance [chuckles] of being directed to the previous version where everything is working. And we were kind of making that trade-off of like, oh, we could hotfix this right now on the canary release. But then, as we were starting to debug a little bit, it was a bit hairier than we expected originally. And so, you know, I said, "I have to hop on to go record The Bike Shed. So, why don't we just take this canary down just for the time being to take that time pressure off? And it's Friday, so we're heading into the weekend. And maybe we can revisit the issue with some fresh eyes." So, I'm feeling really good, actually. And I'm glad that we were able to do something that seems scary, but there were guardrails in place to make it a lot more chill. JOËL: Yay for the ability to roll back. You used the term canary release. That's not one that I'm familiar with. Can you explain what a canary release is? STEPHANIE: Oh yeah. Have you heard of the phrase 'Canary in the coal mine'? JOËL: I have. STEPHANIE: Okay. So, I believe it's the same idea where you are, in this case, releasing a potentially risky change, but you don't want to immediately make it available to, like, all of your users. And so, you send this change to, like, a small reach, I suppose, and give it a little bit of a test and see [chuckles] what comes back. And that can help inform you of any issues or risks that might happen before kind of committing to deploying a potentially risky change with a bigger impact. JOËL: Is this handled with something like a feature flag framework? Or is this, like, at an infrastructure level where you're just like, "Hey, we've got the canary image in, like, one container on one server, and then we'll redirect 10% of traffic to that to be served by that one and the other 90% to be served by the old container or something like that"? STEPHANIE: Yeah, in this case, it was at the infrastructure level. And I have also seen something similar at a feature flag level, too, where you're able to have some more granularity around what percent of users are seeing a feature. But I think with something like a Rails upgrade, it was nice to be able to have that at that infrastructure level. It's not necessarily, like, a particular page or feature to show or not show. JOËL: Yeah, I think you would probably want that at a higher level when you're changing over the entire app. Is this something that you had to custom-build yourself or something that just sort of came out of the box with some of the infrastructure tools you're using? STEPHANIE: It came out of the box, actually. I just joined this client project this week and was very delighted to see just some really great deployment infrastructure and getting to meet the DevOps engineers, too, who built it. And they're really proud of it. They kind of walked us through our first release earlier this week. And he was telling me, the DevOps engineer, that this was actually his favorite part of the job, is walking people through their first release and being their buddy while they do it. Because I think he gets to also see users interact with the tool that he built, and he had a lot of pride in that, so it was a very delightful experience. JOËL: That's so wonderful. I've been on so many projects where the sort of infrastructure side of things is not the team's strong point, and releasing can be really scary. And it's great to hear the opposite of that. We recently received a question for Stephanie based on an earlier episode. So, the question asks, "In episode 413, Stephanie discussed a recent issue she encountered with wkhtml2pdf. The episode turned into a deeper discussion about package management, but I don't think it ever cycled back to the conclusion. I'm curious: how did Stephanie solve this dilemma? We're facing the same issue on a project that my team maintains. It's an old codebase, and there are bits of old code that use wkhtml2pdf to generate print views of our data in our application. The situation is fairly dire. wkhtml2pdf is no longer maintained. In fact, it won't even be available to install from our operating system's package repositories in June. We're on FreeBSD, but I assume the same will be eventually true for other operating systems. And so, unless you want to maintain some build step to check out and compile the source code for an application that will no longer receive security updates, just living with it isn't really an option. There are three options we're considering. One, eliminate the dependency entirely. Based on user feedback, it sounds like our old developers were using this library to generate PDFs when what users really wanted was an easy way to print. So, instead of downloading a PDF, just ensure the screen has a good print style sheet and register an onload handler to call window dot print. We're thinking we could implement this as an A/B test to the feature to test this theory. Or two, replace wkhtml2pdf with a call to Headless Chrome and use that to generate the PDF. Or, three, replace wkhtml2pdf with a language-level package. For us, that might be the dompdf library available via Composer because we're a PHP shop." Yeah, a lot to unpack here. Any high-level thoughts, Stephanie? STEPHANIE: My first thought while I was listening to you read that question is that wkhtml2pdf is such a mouthful [laughs]. And I was impressed how you managed to say it at least, like, five times. JOËL: So, I try to say that five times fast. STEPHANIE: And then, my second high-level thought was, I'm so sorry to Brian, our listener who wrote in, because I did not really solve this dilemma [chuckles] for my project and team. I kind of kicked the can down the road, and that's because this was during a support and maintenance rotation that I've talked a little bit about before on the show. I was only working on this project for about a week. And what we thought was a small bug to figure out why PDFs were a little bit broken turned out, as you mentioned, to be this kind of big, dire dilemma where I did not feel like I had enough information to make a good call about what to do. So, I kind of just shared my findings that, like, hey, there is kind of a risk and hoping that someone else [laughs] would be able to make a better determination. But I really was struck by the options that you were considering because it was actually a bit of a similar situation to the bug I was sharing where the PDF that was being generated that was slightly broken. I don't think it was, like, super valuable to our users that it be in the form of a PDF. It really was just a way for them to print something to have on handy as a reference from, you know, some data that was generated from the app. So, yeah, based on what you're sharing, I feel really excited about the first one. Joël, I'm sure you have some opinions about this as well. JOËL: I love sort of the bigger picture thinking that Brian is doing here, sort of stepping back and being like, wait, why do we even need PDF here, and how are our customers using it? I think those are the really good questions to ask before sinking a ton of time into coming up with something that might be, like, a bit of a technical wonder. Like, hey, we managed to, like, do this PDF generation thing that we had to, like, cobble together so many other things. And it's so cool technically, but does it actually solve the underlying problem? So, shout out to Brian for thinking about it in those terms. I love that. Second cool thing that I wanted to shout out, because I think this is a feature of browsers that not many people are aware of; you can have multiple style sheets for your page, and you can tag them to be for different media. So, you can have a style sheet that only gets applied when you print versus when you display on screen. And there are a couple of others. I don't remember exactly what they are. I'll link to the docs in the show notes. But taking advantage of this, like, this is old technology but making that available and saying, "Yeah, we'll make it so that it's nice when you print, and we'll maybe even, you know, a link or a button with JavaScript so that you could just Command-P or Control-P to print. But we'll have a button in there as well that will allow you to print to PDF," and that solves your problem right there. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's really cool. I didn't know that about being able to tag style sheets for different media types. That's really fascinating. And I like that, yeah, we're just eliminating this dependency on something, like, potentially really complex with a, hopefully, kind of elegant and modern solution, maybe. JOËL: And your browser is already able to do so many of these things. Why do we sort of try to recreate it? Printing is a thing browsers have been able to do for a long time. Printing to PDF is a thing that you can do for a long time. I will sometimes use that on sites where I need to, let's say I'm purchasing something, and I need some sort of receipt to expense, but they won't give me a download, a PDF download that I can send to the accounting team, so I will print to PDF the, like, HTML view. And that works just fine. It's kind of a workaround hack. Sometimes, it doesn't work well because the HTML page is just not well set up to, like, show up on a PDF page. You get some, like, weird, like, pagination issues or things like that. But, you know, just a little bit of thought for a print style sheet, especially for something you know that people are likely going to want to print or to save to PDF, that's a nice touch. STEPHANIE: Yeah. So, good luck, Brian, and let us know how this goes and any outcomes you find successful. So, for today's longer topic, I was excited because I saw, Joël, you dropped something in our topic backlog: Multidimensional Numbers. I'm curious what prompted this idea and what you wanted to say about it. JOËL: We did an episode a while back where we talked about value objects, wrapping numbers, wrapping collections. This is Episode 386, and we were talking about tallying, specifically working with collections of T-shirt sizes and doing math on these sort of objects that might contain multiple numbers. And a sort of sidebar from that that we didn't really get into is the idea that objects that contain sort of multiple numbers can be treated as a number themselves. And I think a great example of this is something like a point in two-dimensional space. It's got an x coordinate, a y coordinate. It's two numbers, but you can treat sort of the combination of the two of them together as a single number. There's a whole set of coordinate math that you can do to do things like add coordinates together, subtract them, find the distance between them. There's a whole field of vector math that we can do on those. And I think learning to recognize that numbers are not just instances of the integer or the float class but that there could be these more complex things that are also numbers is maybe an important realization and something that, as developers, if we think of these sort of more complex values as numbers, or at least mathematical objects, then that will help us write better code. STEPHANIE: Cool. Yeah. When you were first talking about 2D points, I was thinking about if I have experience working with that before or, like, having to build something really heavily based off of, like, a canvas or, you know, a coordinate system. And I couldn't think of any really good examples until I thought about, like, geographic locations. JOËL: Oh yeah, like a latitude, longitude. STEPHANIE: Yeah, exactly. Like, that is a lot more common, I think, for various types of just, like, production applications than 2D points if you're not working on, like, a video game or something like that, I think. JOËL: Right, right. I think you're much more likely to be working with 2D points on some more sort of front-end-heavy application. I was talking with someone this week about managing a seat map for concerts and events like that and sort of creating a seat map and have it be really interactive, and you can, like, click on seats and things like that. And depending on the level of libraries you're using to build that, you may have to do a lot of 2D math to make it all come together. STEPHANIE: Yeah. So, I would love to get into, you know, maybe we've realized, okay, we have some kind of compound number. What are some good reasons for using them differently than you would a primitive? JOËL: So, you mentioned primitives, and I think this is where maybe I'm developing a reputation about, like, always wanting value objects for everything. But it would be really easy, let's say, for an xy point to be just an array of two numbers or maybe even a hash with an x key and a y key. What's tricky about that is that then you don't have the ability to do math on them. Arrays do define the plus operator, but they don't do what you want them to do with points. It's the set union. So, adding two points would not at all do what you want, or subtracting two points. So, instead, if you have a custom 2D point class and you can define plus and minus on there to do the right thing, now they're not pairs of numbers, two values; they're a single value, and you can treat them as if they are just a single number. STEPHANIE: You mentioned that arrays don't do the right thing when you try to add them up. What is the right thing that you're thinking of then? JOËL: It probably depends a little bit on the type of object you're working with. So, with 2D points, you're probably trying to do vector addition where you're effectively saying almost, like, "Shift this point in 2D space by the amount of this other point." Or if you're doing a subtraction, you might even be asking, like, "What is the distance between these two points?" Euclidean distance, I think, is the technical term for this. There's also a couple of different ways you can multiply values. You can multiply a 2D point by just a sort of, not by another point, but by just an integer. That's called scaling. So, you're just like, oh, take this point in 2D space, but make it bigger, make it five times bigger or five times further from the origin. Or you can do some stuff with other points. But what you don't want to do is turn this into, if you're starting with arrays, you don't want to turn this into an array of four points. When you add two points in 2D space, you're not trying to create a point in 4D space. STEPHANIE: Whoa, I mean [laughs], maybe you're not. JOËL: You could but -- [laughter] STEPHANIE: Yeah. While you were saying that, I guess that is what is really cool about wrapping, encapsulating them in objects is that you get to decide what that means for you and your application, and -- JOËL: Yeah. Well, plus can mean different things, right? STEPHANIE: Yeah. JOËL: On arrays, plus means combining two arrays together. On integers, it means you do integer math. And on points, it might be vector addition. STEPHANIE: Are there any other arithmetic operators you can think of that would be useful to implement if you were trying to create some functionality on a point? JOËL: That's a good question because I think realizing the inverse of that is also a really powerful thing. Just because you create a sort of new mathematical object, a point in 2D space, doesn't mean that necessarily every arithmetic operator makes sense on it. Does it make sense to divide a point by another point? Maybe not. And so, instead of going with the mindset of, oh, a point is a mathematical object, I now need to implement all of arithmetic on this, instead, think in terms of your domain. What are the operations that make sense? What are the operations you need for this point? And, you know, maybe the answer is look up what are the common sort of vector math operations and implement those on your 2D point. Some of them will map to arithmetic operators like plus and minus, and then some of them might just be some sort of custom method where maybe you say, "Oh, I want the Euclidean distance between these two points." That's just a thing. Maybe it's just a named instance method on there. But yeah, don't feel like you need to implement all of the math operators because that's a mistake that I have made and then have ended up, like, implementing nonsensical things. STEPHANIE: [laughs] Creating your own math. JOËL: Yes, creating my own math. I've done this even on where I've done value objects to wrap single values. I was doing a class to represent currency, and I was like, well, clearly, you need, like, methods to, like, add or subtract your currency, and that's another thing. If you have, let's say, a plus method, now you can plug it into, let's say, reduce plus. And you can just sum a list of these currency objects and get back a new currency. It's not even going to give you back an integer. You just get a sort of new currency object that is the sum of all the other ones, and that's really nice. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's really cool. It reminds me of all the magic of enumerable that you had talked about in a previous conference talk, where, you know, you just get so much out of implementing those basic operators that, like, kind of scales in handiness. JOËL: Yes. Turns out Ruby is actually a pretty nice system. If you have objects that respond to some common methods and you plug them into enumerable, and it just all kind of works. STEPHANIE: So, one thing you had said earlier that I've felt kind of excited about and wanted to highlight was you mentioned all the different ways that you could represent a 2D point with more primitive data stores, so, you know, an array of two integers, a hash with xy keys. It got me thinking about how, yeah, like, maybe if your system has to talk to another system and you're importing data or exporting data, it might eventually need to take those forms. But what is cool about having an encapsulated object in your application is you can kind of control those boundaries a little bit and have more confidence in terms of the data types that you're using within your system by having various ways to construct that, like, domain object, even if the data coming in is in a different shape. JOËL: And I think that you're hitting on one of the real beauties of object-oriented programming, where the sort of users of your object don't need to know about the internal representation. Maybe you store an array internally. Maybe it's two separate instance variables. Maybe it's something else entirely. But all that the users of your, let's say, 2D point object really need to care about is, hey, the constructor wants values in this shape, and then I can call these domain methods on it, and then the rest just sort of happens. It's an implementation detail. It doesn't matter. And you alluded, I think, to the idea that you can sort of create multiple constructors. You called them constructors. I tend to call them that as well. But they're really just class methods that will kind of, like, add some sugar on top of the constructor. So, you might have, like, a from array pair or from hash or something like that that allows you to maybe do a little bit of massaging of the data before you pass it into your constructor that might want some underlying form. And I think that's a pattern that's really nice. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I agree. JOËL: Something that can be interesting there, too, is that mathematically, there are multiple ways you can think of a 2D point. An xy coordinate pair is a common one, but another sort of system for representing a point in 2D space is called the polar coordinate system. So, you have some sort of, like, origin point. You're 0,0. And then, instead of saying so many to the left and so many up from that origin point, you give an angle and a distance, and that's where your point is. So, an angle and distance point, I think, you know, theta and magnitude are the fancy terms for this. You could, instead of creating a separate, like, oh, I have a polar coordinate point and a Cartesian coordinate point, and those are separate things, you can say, no, I just have a point in 2D space. They can be constructed from either an xy coordinate pair or a magnitude angle pair. Internally, maybe you convert one to the other for internal representation because it makes the math easier or whatever. Your users never need to know that. They just pass in the values that they want, use the constructor that is most convenient for them, and it might be both. Maybe some parts of the app require polar coordinates; some require Cartesian coordinates. You could even construct one of each, and now you can do math with each other because they're just instances of the same class. STEPHANIE: Whoa. Yeah, I was trying to think about transforming between the two types as well. It's all possible [laughs]. JOËL: Yes. Because you could have reader-type methods on your object that say, oh, for this point, give me its x coordinate; give me its y coordinate. Give me its distance from the origin. Give me its angle from the origin. And those are all questions you can ask that object, and it can calculate them. And you don't need to care what its internal representation is to be able to get all four of those. So, we've been talking about a lot of these sort of composite numbers, not composite numbers, that's a separate mathematical thing, but numbers that are composed of sort of multiple sub-numbers. And what about situations where you have two things, and one of them is not a number? I'm thinking of all sorts of units of measure. So, I don't just have three. I have three, maybe...and we were talking about currency earlier, so maybe three U.S. dollars. Or I don't just have five; I have five, you know, let's say, meters of distance. Would you consider something like that to be one of these compound number things? STEPHANIE: Right. I think I was–when we were originally talking about this, conflating the two. But I realized that, you know, just because we're adding context to a number and potentially packaging it as a value object, it's still different from what we're talking about today where, you know, there's multiple components to the number that are integral or required for it to mean what we intended to mean, if that makes sense. JOËL: Yeah. STEPHANIE: So yeah, I guess we did want to kind of make a distinction between value objects that while the additional context is important and you can implement a lot of different functionality based on what it represents, at the end of the day, it only kind of has one magnitude or, like, one integer to kind of encapsulate it represented as a number. Does that sound right? JOËL: Yeah. You did throw out the words encapsulation and value object. So, in a situation maybe where I have three US dollars, would you create some kind of custom object to wrap that? Or is that a situation where you'd be more comfortable using some kind of primitive? Like, I don't know, maybe an array pair of three and the symbol USD or something like that. STEPHANIE: Oh, I would definitely not do that [laughter]. Yeah. Like I, you know, for the most part, I think I've seen that as a currency object, and that expands the world of what we can do with it, converting into a lot of different other currencies. And yeah, just making sure those things don't get divorced from each other because that context is what gives it meaning. But when it comes to our compound numbers, it's like, without all of the components, it doesn't make sense, or it doesn't even represent the same, like, numerical value that we were trying to convey. JOËL: Right. You need both, or, you know, it could be more than two. It could be three, four, or five numbers together to mean something. You mentioned conversions, which I think is something that's also interesting because a lot of units of measure have sort of multiple ways of measuring, and you often want to convert between them. And maybe that's another case where encapsulation is really nice where, you know, maybe you have a distance object. And you have five meters, and you put that into your distance object, but then somebody wants it in feet somewhere else or in centimeters, or something like that. And it can just do all the conversion math safely inside that object, and the user doesn't have to worry about it. STEPHANIE: Right. This is maybe a bit of a tangent, but as a Canadian living in the U.S., I don't know [laughs] if you have any opinions about converting meters and feet. JOËL: The one I actually do the most often is converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa. You know, I've been here, what, 11 years now? I don't have a great intuition for Fahrenheit temperatures. So, I'm converting in my head just [laughs] on a daily basis. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that makes sense. Conversions: they're important. They help out our friends who [laughs] are on different systems of measurement. JOËL: There's a classic story that I love about unit conversions. I think it's one of the NASA Mars missions. STEPHANIE: Oh yeah. JOËL: You've heard of this one. It was trying to land on Mars, and it burned up in the atmosphere because two different teams had been building different components and used different unit systems, both according to spec for their own module. But then, when the modules try to talk to each other, they're sending over numbers in meters instead of feet or something like that. And it just caused [laughs] this, like, multi-year, multi-billion dollar project to just burn up. STEPHANIE: That's right. So, lesson of the day is don't do that. I can think of another example where there might be a little bit of misconceptions in terms of how to represent it. And I'm thinking about time and when that has been represented in multiple parts, such as in hours and, minutes and seconds. Do you have any initial impressions about a piece of data like that? JOËL: So, that's really interesting, right? Because, at first glance, it looks like, oh, it's, like, a triplet of hour, minute, seconds. It's sort of another one of these sort of compound numbers, and I guess you could implement it that way. But in reality, you're tracking a single quantity, the amount of time elapsed, and that can be represented with a single number. So, if you're representing, let's say, time of day, what would show up on your clock? That could be, depending on the resolution, number of, let's say, seconds since midnight, and that's a single counter. And then, you can do some math on it to get hours, minutes, seconds for a particular moment. But really, it's a single quantity, and we can do that with time. We can't do that with a 2D point. Like, it has to have two components. STEPHANIE: So, do you have a recommendation for what unit of time time would best be stored? I'm just thinking of all the times that I've had to do that millisecond, you know, that conversion of, you know, however many thousands of milliseconds in my head into something that actually means [laughs] something to me as a human being who measures time in hours and minutes. JOËL: My recommendation is absolutely go for a single number that you store in your, let's say, time of day object. It makes the math so much easier. You don't have to worry about, like, overflowing from one number into another when you're doing math or anything like that. And then the number that you count should be at the whatever the smallest resolution you care at. So, is there ever any time where you want to distinguish between two different milliseconds in time? Or maybe you're like, you know what? These are, like, we're tracking time of day for appointments. We don't care about the difference between two milliseconds. We don't need to track them independently. We don't even care about seconds. The most granular we ever care about things is by the minute. And so, maybe then your internal number that you track is a counter of minutes since midnight. But if you need more precision, you can go down to seconds or milliseconds or nanoseconds. But yeah, find what is the sort of the least resolution you want to get away with and then make that the unit of measure for a single counter in your object. And then encapsulate that so that nobody else needs to care that, internally, your time of day object is doing milliseconds because nobody wants to do that math. Just give me a nice, like, hours and minutes method on your object, and I will use that. I don't need to know internally what it's using. Please don't just pass around integers; wrap it in an object, especially because integers, there's enough times where you're doing seconds versus milliseconds. And when I just have an integer, I never know if the person storing this integer means seconds or milliseconds. So, I'm just like, oh, I'm going to pass to this, like, user object, a, like, time integer. And unless there's a comment or a constant, you know, that's named something duration in milliseconds or something like that, you know, or sometimes even, like, one year in milliseconds, or there's no way of knowing. STEPHANIE: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. When you kind of choose a standard of a standard unit, it's, like, possible to make it easier [laughs]. JOËL: So, circling back to sort of the initial thing that sparked this conversation, the previous episode about T-shirt inventories, there we were dealing with what started off as, like, a hash of different T-shirt sizes and quantities of T-shirts that we had in that size, so small (five), medium (three), large (four). And then, we eventually turned that into a value object that represented...I think we called it a tally, but maybe we called it inventory. And this may be wrong, so tell me if I'm wrong here, I think we can kind of treat that as a number, as, like, one of these compound numbers. It's a sort of multidimensional number where you say, well, we have sort of three dimensions where we can have numbers that sort of increase and decrease independently. We can do math on these because we can take inventories or tallies and add and subtract them. And that's what we ended up having to do. We created a value object. We implemented plus and minus on it. There are rules for how the math works. I think this is a multidimensional number with the definition we're working on this show. Am I wrong here? STEPHANIE: I wouldn't say that you're wrong. I think I would have to think a little [laughs] more to say definitively that you're right. But I know that this example came from, you know, an application I was actually working on. And one of the main things that we had to do with these representations [laughs], I'm hesitant to call them a number, especially, but we had to compare these representations frequently because an inventory, for example, in a warehouse, wanting to make sure that it is equal to or there's enough of the inventory if someone was placing an order, which would also contain, like, a representation of T-shirt size inventory. And that was kind of where some of that math happened because, you know, maybe we don't want to let someone place an order if the inventory at the warehouse is smaller than their order, right? So, there is something really compelling about the comparison operations that we were doing that kind of is leaning me in the direction of, like, yeah, like, it makes sense to me to use this in a way that I would compare, like, quantities or numbers of something. JOËL: I think one thing that was really compelling to me, and that kind of blew my mind, was that we were trying to, like, figure out some things like, oh, we've got so many people with these size preferences, and we've got so many T-shirts across different warehouses. And we're summing them up and we're trying to say like, "How many do we need to purchase if there is a deficit?" And we can come up with effectively a formula for this. We're like, sum these numbers, when we're talking about just before we introduce sizes when it's just like, oh, people have T-shirts. They all get the count of people and a count of T-shirts in our warehouse, and we find, you know, the difference between that. And there's a few extra math operations we do. Then you introduce size, and you break it down by, oh, we've got so many of each. And now the whole thing gets really kind of messy and complicated. And you're doing these reduces and everything. When we start treating the tally of T-shirts as an object, and now it's a number that responds to plus and minus, all of a sudden, you can just plug those back into the original formula, and it all just works. The original formula doesn't care whether the numbers you're doing this formula on are simple integers or these sort of multidimensional numbers. And that blew my mind, and it was so cool. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that is really neat. And you get a lot of added benefits, too. I think the other important piece in the T-shirt size example was kind of tracking the state change, and that's so much easier when you have an object. There's just a lot more you can do with it. And even if, you know, you're not persisting every single version of the representation, you know, because sometimes you don't want to, sometimes you're really just kind of only holding it in memory to figure out if you need to, you know, do something else. But other times, you do want to persist it. And it just plugs in really well with, like, the rest of object-oriented programming [laughs] in terms of interacting with the rest of your business needs, I think, in your app. JOËL: Yeah, turns out objects, they're kind of nice. And you can do math with them. Who knew? Math is not just about integers. STEPHANIE: And on that note, shall we wrap up? JOËL: Let's wrap up. STEPHANIE: Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeee!!!!!! AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

In this thought-provoking conversation with Freya Mathews, we delved into the depths of panpsychism, nature, and eco-philosophy. Freya illuminated the interconnectedness of these ideas, emphasizing how our current ecological crisis demands a profound reevaluation of the very assumptions that gave rise to modernity. Panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe, became a central theme. Freya articulated how recognizing the sentience within all things challenges the human-centric perspective that has led to environmental exploitation. She passionately argued that a shift towards an eco-philosophy rooted in panpsychism can help us cultivate a more respectful and reciprocal relationship with the natural world. As we explored these concepts, it became clear that responding to our ecological challenges requires more than just surface-level solutions. Freya urged us to rethink our place in the world, to question the Cartesian dualism that separates mind from matter, and to embrace a holistic understanding of existence. In this enlightening conversation, Freya Matthews inspired a call to action—to not only address the symptoms of our environmental crisis but to fundamentally transform our worldview, recognizing the intrinsic value and agency of all life forms on this planet. Freya Mathews is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Latrobe University. Her books include The Ecological Self (1991, 2021), Ecology and Democracy (editor) (1996), For Love of Matter: a Contemporary Panpsychism(2003), Journey to the Source of the Merri (2003), Reinhabiting Reality: towards a Recovery of Culture(2005), Ardea: a philosophical novella (2016), Without Animals Life is not Worth Living (2016) and The Dao of Civilization: a Letter to China (2023). She is the author of over a hundred essays, chapters and articles in the area of ecological philosophy. Her current special interests are in ecological civilization; indigenous (Australian and Chinese) perspectives on “regenerativity” and how these perspectives may be adapted to the context of contemporary global society; panpsychism and the critique of the metaphysics of modernity; and conservation ethics. In addition to her research activities she helps to care for a private conservation reserve in northern Victoria. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. JOIN the HISTORICAL JESUS class with Dom Crossan Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephanie has a delightful and cute Ruby thing to share: Honeybadger, the error monitoring service, has created exceptionalcreatures.com, where they've illustrated and characterized various common Ruby errors into little monsters, and they're adorable. Meanwhile, Joël encourages folks to submit proposals for RailsConf. Together, Stephanie and Joël delve into the nuances of adapting to and working within new codebases, akin to aligning with a shared mental model or vision. They ponder several vital questions that every developer faces when encountering a new project: the balance between exploring a codebase to understand its structure and diving straight into tasks, the decision-making process behind adopting new patterns versus adhering to established ones, and the strategies teams can employ to assist developers who are familiarizing themselves with a new environment. Honeybadger's Exceptional Creatures (https://www.exceptionalcreatures.com/) RailsConf CFP coaching sessions (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZxDFaHZg8ncQaOiq5tjX0IXvYmQrTfjzpKaM_Bnj5HHaNdw/viewform) HTTP Cats (https://http.cat/) Support and Maintenance Episode (https://bikeshed.thoughtbot.com/409) Transcript:  JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville. STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world? STEPHANIE: I have a delightful and cute Ruby thing to share I'd seen just in our internal company Slack. Honeybadger, the error monitoring service, has created a cute little webpage called exceptionalcreatures.com, where they've basically illustrated and characterized various common Ruby errors into little monsters [laughs], and I find them adorable. I think their goal is also to make it a really helpful resource for people encountering these kinds of errors, learning about them for the first time, and figuring how to triage or debug them. And I just think it's a really cool way of, like, making it super approachable, debugging and, you know, when you first encounter a scary error message, can be really overwhelming, and then Googling about it can also be equally [chuckles] overwhelming. So, I just really liked the whimsy that they kind of injected into something that could be really hard to learn about. Like, there are so many different error messages in Ruby and in Rails and whatever other libraries you're using. And so, that's kind of a...I think they've created a one-stop shop for, you know, figuring out how to move forward with common errors. And I also like that it's a bit of a collective effort. They're calling it, like, a bestiary for all the little creatures [laughs] that they've discovered. And I think you can, like, submit your own favorite Ruby error and any guidance you might have for someone trying to debug it. JOËL: That's adorable. It reminds me a little bit of HTTP status codes as cat memes site. It has that same energy. One thing that I think is really interesting is that because it's Honeybadger, they have stats on, like, frequency of these errors, and a lot of these ones are tied to...I think they're picking some of the most commonly surfaced errors. STEPHANIE: Yeah, there's little, like, ratings, too, for how frequently they occur, kind of just like, I don't know, Pokémon [laughs] [inaudible 02:31]. I think it's really neat that they're using something like a learning from their business or maybe even some, like, proprietary information and sharing it with the world so that we can learn from it. JOËL: I think one thing that's worth specifying as well is that these are specific exception classes that get raised. So, they're not just, like, random error strings that you see in the wild. They don't often have a whole lot of documentation around them, so it's nice to see a dedicated page for each and a little bit of maybe how this is used in the real world versus maybe how they were designed to be used. Maybe there's a line or two in the docs about, you know, core Ruby when a NoMethodError should be raised. How does NoMethodError actually get used, you know, in real life, and the exceptions that Honeybadger is capturing. That's really interesting to see. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like how each page for the exception class, and I'm glad you made that distinction, is kind of, like, crowdsourced guidance and information from the community, so I think you could even, you know, contribute to it if you wanted. But yeah, just a fun, little website to bring you some delight when you're on your next head-smacking, debugging adventure [laughs]. JOËL: And I love that it brings some joy to the topic, but, honestly, I think it's a pretty good reference. I could see myself linking to this anytime I want to have a deeper discussion on exceptions. So, maybe there's a code review, and maybe I want to suggest that we raise a different error than the one that we're doing. I could see myself in that GitHub comment being like, "Oh, instead of, you know, raising an exception here, why don't we instead raise a NoMethodError or something like that?" And then link to the bestiary page. STEPHANIE: So, Joël, what's new in your world? JOËL: So, just recently, RailsConf announced their call for proposals. It's a fairly short period this year, only about three-ish weeks long. So, I've been really encouraging colleagues to submit and trying to be a resource for people who are interested in speaking at conferences. We did a Q&A session with a fellow thoughtboter, Aji Slater, who's also a former RailsConf speaker, about what makes for a good talk, what is it like to submit to a call for proposals, you know, kind of everything from the process from having an idea all the way to stage presence and delivering. And there's a lot of great questions that got asked and some good discussion that happened there. STEPHANIE: Nice. Yeah, I think I have noticed that you are doing a lot more to help, especially first-time speakers give their first conference talk this year. And I'm wondering if there's anything you've learned or any hopes and dreams you have for kind of the amount of time you're investing into supporting others. JOËL: What I'd like to see is a lot of people submitting proposals; that's always a great thing. And, a proposal, even if it doesn't get accepted, is a thing that you can resubmit. And so, having gone through the effort of building a proposal and especially getting it maybe peer-reviewed by some colleagues to polish your idea, I think is already just a really great exercise, and it's one that you can shop around. It's one that you can maybe convert into a blog post if you need to. You can convert that into some kind of podcast appearance. So, I think it's a great way to take an idea you're excited about and focus it, even if you can't get into RailsConf. STEPHANIE: I really like that metric for success. It reminds me of a writer friend I have who actually was a guest on the show, Nicole Zhu. She submits a lot of short stories to magazines and applications to writing fellowships, and she celebrates every rejection. I think at the end of the year, she, like, celebrates herself for having received, you know, like, 15 rejections or something that year because that meant that she just went for it and, you know, did the hard part of doing the work, putting yourself out there. And that is just as important, you know, if not more than whatever achievement or goal or the idea of having something accepted. JOËL: Yeah, I have to admit; rejection hurts. It's not a fun thing to go through. But I think even if you sort of make it to that final stage of having written a proposal and it gets rejected, you get a lot of value out of that journey sort of regardless of whether you get accepted or not. So, I encourage more people to do that. To any of our listeners who are interested, the RailsConf call for proposals goes through February 13th, 2024. So, if you are listening before then and are inspired, I recommend submitting. If you're unsure of what makes for a good CFP, RailsConf is currently offering coaching sessions to help craft better proposals. They have one on February 5th, one on February 6th, and one on February 7th, so those are also options to look into if this is maybe your first time and you're not sure. There's a signup form. We'll link to it in the show notes. STEPHANIE: So, another update I have that I'm excited to get into for the rest of the episode is my recent work on our support and maintenance team, which I've talked about on the show before. But for any listeners who don't know, it's a kind of sub-team at thoughtbot that is focused on helping maintain multiple client projects at a time. But, at this point, you know, there's not as much active feature development, but the work is focused on keeping the codebase up to date, making any dependency upgrades, fixing any bugs that come up, and general support. So, clients have a team to kind of address those things as they come up. And when I had last talked about it on the podcast, I was really excited because it was a bit of a different way of working. I felt like it was very novel to be, you know, have a lot of different projects and domains to be getting into. And knowing that I was working on this team, like, short-term and, you know, it may not be me in the future continuing what I might have started during my rotation, I thought it was really interesting to be optimizing towards, like, completion of a task. And that had kind of changed my workflow a bit and my process. JOËL: So, now that you've been doing work on the support and maintenance team for a while and you've kind of maybe gotten more comfortable with it, how are you generally feeling about this idea of sort of jumping into new codebases all the time? STEPHANIE: It is both fun and more challenging than I thought it would be. I tend to actually really enjoy that period of joining a new team or a project and exploring, you know, a codebase and getting up to speed, and that's something that we do a lot as consultants. But I think I started to realize that it's a bit of a tricky balance to figure out how much time should I be spending understanding what this codebase is doing? Like, how much of the application do I need to be understanding, and how much poking around should I be doing before just trying to get started on my first task, the first starter ticket that I'm given? There's a bit of a balance there because, on one hand, you could just immediately start on the task and kind of just, you know, have your blinders [chuckles] on and not really care too much about what the rest of the code is doing outside of the change that you're trying to make. But that also means that you don't have that context of why certain things are the way they are. Maybe, like, the way that you want to be building something actually won't work because of some unexpected complexity with the app. So, I think there, you know, needs to be time spent digging around a little bit, but then you could also be digging around for a long time [chuckles] before you feel like, okay, I finally have enough understanding of this new codebase to, like, build a feature exactly how a seasoned developer on the team might. JOËL: I imagine that probably varies a little bit based on the task that you're doing. So, something like, oh, we want to upgrade this codebase to Ruby 3.3, probably requires you to have a very different understanding of the codebase than there's a bug where submitting a comment double posts it, and you have to dig into that. Both of those require you to understand the application on very different levels and kind of understand different mental models of what the app is doing. STEPHANIE: Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point that it can depend on what you are first asked to work on. And, in fact, I actually think that is a good guidepost for where you should be looking because you could develop a mental model that is just completely unrelated [chuckles] to what you're asked to do. And so, I suppose that is, you know, usually a good place to start, at least is like, okay, I have this first task, and there's some understanding and acceptance that, like, the more you work on this codebase, the more you'll explore and discover other parts of it, and that can be on a need to know kind of basis. JOËL: So, I'm thinking that if you are doing something like a Ruby upgrade or even a Rails upgrade, a lot of what you care about the app is going to be on a more mechanical level. So, you want to know what gems you're using. You want to know what different patterns are being used, maybe how callbacks are happening, any particular features that are version-specific that are being used, things like that. Whereas if you're, you know, say, fixing a bug, you might care a lot more about some of the product-level concerns. What are we actually trying to do here? What is the expected user experience? How does this deviate from that? What were the underlying mental models of the developers? So, there's almost, like, two lenses you can look at the code. Now, I almost want to make this a two-dimensional thing, where you can look at it either from, like, a very kind of mechanical lens or a product lens in one axis. And then, on the other axis, you could look at it from a very high-level 10,000-foot view and maybe zoom in a little bit where you need, versus a very localized view; here's where the bug is happening on this page, and then sort of zoom out as necessary. And I could see different sorts of tasks falling in different quadrants there of, do I need a more mechanical view? Do I need a more product-focused view? And do I need to be looking locally versus globally? STEPHANIE: Wow. I can't believe you just created a Cartesian graph [laughs] for this problem on the fly. But I love it because I do think that actually lines up with different strategies I've taken before. It's like, how much do you even look at the code before deciding that you can't really get a good picture of it, of what the product is, without just poking around from the app itself? I actually think that I tend to start from the code. Like, maybe I'll see a screenshot that someone has shared of the app, you know, like a bug or something that they want me to fix, and then looking for that text in the code first, and then trying to kind of follow that path, whereas it's also, you know, perfectly viable to try to see the app being used in production, or staging, or something first to get a better understanding of some of the business problems it's trying to solve. JOËL: When you jump into a new codebase, do you sort of consciously take the time to plan your approach or sort of think about, like, how much knowledge of this new codebase do I need before I can, like, actually look at the problem at hand? STEPHANIE: Ooh, that's kind of a hard question to answer because I think my experience has told me enough times that it's never what I think it's going to [laughs] be, not never, but it frequently surprises me. It has surprised me enough times that it's kind of hard to know off the bat because it's not...as much as we work in frameworks that have opinions and conventions, a lot of the work that happens is understanding how this particular codebase and team does things and then having to maybe shift or adjust from there. So, I think I don't do a lot of planning. I don't really have an idea about how much time it'll take me because I can't really know until I dive in a little bit. So, that is usually my first instinct, even if someone is wanting to, like, talk to me about an approach or be, like, "Hey, like, how long do you think this might take based on your experience as a consultant?" This is my first task. Oftentimes, I really can't say until I've had a little bit of downtime to, in some ways, like, acquire the knowledge [chuckles] to figure that out or answer that question. JOËL: How much knowledge do you like to get upfront about an app before you dive into actually doing the task at hand? Are there any things, like, when you get access to a new codebase, that you'll always want to look at to get a sense of the project before you look at any tickets? STEPHANIE: I actually start at the model level. Usually, I am curious about what kinds of objects we're working with. In fact, I think that is really helpful for me. They're like building blocks, in order for me to, like, conceptually understand this world that's being represented by a codebase. And I kind of either go outwards or inwards from there. Usually, if there's a model that is, like, calling to me as like, oh, I'll probably need to interact with, then I'll go and seek out, like, where that model is created, maybe through controllers, maybe through background jobs, or something like that, and start to piece together entry points into the application. I find that helpful because a lot of the times, it can be hard to know whether certain pages or routes are even used at all anymore. They could just be dead code and could be a bit misleading. I've certainly been misled [chuckles] more than once. And so, I think if I'm able to pull out the main domain objects that I notice in a ticket or just hear people talk about on the team, that's usually where I gravitate towards first. What about you? Do you have a place you like to start when it comes to exploring a new codebase like that? JOËL: The routes file is always a good sort of overview of, like, what is going on in the app. Scanning the models directory is also a great start in a Rails app to get a sense of what is this app about? What are the core nouns in our vocabulary? Another thing that's good to look for in a codebase is what are the big types of patterns that they tend to use? The Rails ecosystem goes through fads, and, over time, different patterns will be more popular than others. And so, it's often useful to see, oh, is this an app where everything happens in service objects, or is this an app that likes to rely on view components to render their views? Things like that. Once you get a sense of that, you get a little bit of a better sense of how things are architected beyond just the basic MVC. STEPHANIE: I like that you mentioned fads because I think I can definitely tell, you know, how modern an app is or kind of where it might be stuck in time [chuckles] a little bit based on those patterns and libraries that it's heavily utilizing, which I actually find to be an interesting and kind of challenging position to be in because how do you approach making changes to a codebase that is using a lot of patterns or styles from back in the day? Would you continue following those same patterns, or do you feel motivated to introduce something new or kind of what might be trendy now? JOËL: This is the boring answer, but it's almost never worth it to, like, rewrite the codebase just to use a new pattern. Just introducing the new pattern in some of the new things means there are now two patterns. That's also not a great outcome for the team. So, without some other compelling reason, I default to using the established patterns. STEPHANIE: Even if it's something you don't like? JOËL: Yes. I'm not a huge fan of service objects, but I work in plenty of codebases that have them, and so where it makes sense, I will use service objects there. Service objects are not mutually exclusive with other things, and so sometimes it might make sense to say, look, I don't feel like I can justify a service object here. I'll do this logic in a view, or maybe I'll pull this out into some other object that's not a service object and that can live alongside nicely. But I'm not necessarily introducing a new pattern. I'm just deciding that this particular extraction might not necessarily need a service object. STEPHANIE: That's an interesting way to describe it, not as a pattern, but as kind of, like, choosing not to use the existing [chuckles] pattern. But that doesn't mean, like, totally shifting the architecture or even how you're asking other people to understand the codebase. And I think I'm in agreement. I'm actually a bit of a follower, too, [laughs], where I want to, I don't know, just make things match a little bit with what's already been created, follow that style. That becomes pretty important to me when integrating with a team in a codebase. But I actually think that, you know, when you are calibrating to a codebase, you're in a position where you don't have all that baggage and history about how things need to be. And maybe you might be empowered to have a little bit more freedom to question existing patterns or bring some new ideas to the team to, hopefully, like, help the code evolve. I think that's something that I struggle with sometimes is feeling compelled to follow what came before me and also wanting to introduce some new things just to see what the team might think about them. JOËL: A lot of that can vary depending on what is the pattern you want to introduce and sort of what your role is going to be on that team. But that is something that's nice about someone new coming onto a project. They haven't just sort of accepted that things are the way they are, especially for things that the team already doesn't like but doesn't feel like they have the energy to do anything better about it. So, maybe you're in a codebase where there's a ton of Ruby code in your ERB templates, and it's not really a pattern that you're following. It's just a thing that's there. It's been sort of the path of least resistance for a long time, and it's easier to add more lines in there, but nobody likes it. New person joins the team, and their naive exuberance is just like, "We can fix it. We can make it better." And maybe that's, you know, going back and rewriting all of your views. That's probably not the best use of their time. But it could be maybe the first time they have to touch one of these views, cleaning up that one and starting a conversation among the team. "Hey, here are some patterns that we might like to clean up some of these views instead," or "Here are maybe some guidelines for anything new that we write that we want to do to keep our views clean," and sort of start moving the needle in a positive direction. STEPHANIE: I like the idea of moving the needle. Even though I tend to not want to stir the pot with any big changes, one thing that I do find myself doing is in a couple of places in the specs, just trying to refactor a bit away from using lets. There were some kind of forward-thinking decisions made before when RSpec was basically going to deprecate using the describe block without prepending it with their module, so just kind of throwing that in there whenever I would touch a spec and asking other people to do the same. And then, recently, one kind of, like, small syntax thing that I hadn't seen before, and maybe this is just because of the age of the codebases in which I'm working, the argument forwarding syntax in Ruby that has been new, I mean, it's like not totally new anymore [laughs], but throwing that in there a little every now and then to just kind of shift away from this, you know, dated version of the code kind of towards things that other people are seeing and in newer projects. JOËL: I love harnessing that energy of being new on a project and wanting to make things better. How do you avoid just being, you know, that developer, though, that's new, comes in, and just wants to change everything for the sake of change or for your own personal opinions and just kind of moves things around, stirs the pot, but doesn't really contribute anything net positive to the team? Because I've definitely seen that as well, and that's not a good first contribution or, you know, contribution in general as a newer team member. How do we avoid being that person while still capitalizing on that energy of being someone new and wanting to make a positive impact? STEPHANIE: Yeah, that's a great point, and I kind of alluded to this earlier when I asked, like, oh, like, even if you don't like an existing syntax or pattern you'll still follow it? And I think liking something a different way is not a good enough reason [chuckles]. But if you are able to have a good reason, like I mentioned with the RSpec prepending, you know, it didn't need to happen now, but if we would hope to upgrade that gem eventually, then yeah, that was a good reason to make that change as opposed to just purely aesthetic [laughs]. JOËL: That's one where there is pretty much a single right answer to. If you plan to keep staying up to date with versions of RSpec, you will eventually need to do all these code changes because, you know, they're deprecating the old way. Getting ahead of that gradually as we touch spec files, there's kind of no downside to it. STEPHANIE: That's true, though maybe there is a person who exists out there who's like, "I love this old version of RSpec, and I will die on this hill that we have to stay on [laughs] it." But I also think that I have preferences, but I'm not so attached to them. Ideally, you know, what I would love to receive is just, like, curiosity about like, "Oh, like, why did you make this change?" And just kind of share my reasoning. And sometimes in that process, I realize, you know, I don't have a great reason, and I'll just say, "I don't have a great reason. This is just the way I like it. But if it doesn't work for you, like, tell me, and I'll consider changing it back. [chuckles]" JOËL: Maybe that's where there's a lot of benefit is the sort of curiosity on the part of the existing team and sort of openness to both learn about existing practices but also share about different practices from the new teammate. And maybe that's you're coming in, and you have a different style where you like to write tests, maybe without using RSpec's let syntax; the team is using it. Maybe you can have a conversation with the team. It's almost certainly not worth it for you to go and rewrite the entire test suite to not use let and be like, "Hey, first PR. I made your test better." STEPHANIE: Hundreds of files changed, thousands [laughs] of lines of code. I think that's actually a good segue into the question of how can a team support a new hire or a new developer who is still calibrating to a codebase? I think I'm curious about this being different from onboarding because, you know, there are a lot of things that we already kind of expect to give some extra time and leeway for someone who's new coming in. But what might be some ways to support a new developer that are less well known? JOËL: One that I really like is getting them involved as early as possible in code review because then they get to see the patterns that are coming in, and they can be involved in conversations on those. The first PR you're reviewing, and you see a bunch of tests leaning heavily on let, and maybe you ask a question, "Is this a pattern that we're following in this codebase? Did we have a particular motivation for why we chose this?" And, you know, and you don't want to do it in a sort of, like, passive-aggressive way because you're trying to push something else. It has to come from a place of genuine curiosity, but you're allowing the new teammate to both see a lot of the existing patterns kind of in very quick succession because you see a pretty good cross-section of those when you review code. And also, to have conversations about them, to ask anything like, "Oh, that's unusual. I didn't know we were doing that." Or, "Hey, is this a pattern that we're doing kind of just local to this subsystem, or is this something that's happening all the way? Is this a pattern that we're using and liking? Is this a thing that we were doing five years ago that we're phasing out, but there's still a few of them left?" Those are all, I think, great questions to ask when you're getting started. STEPHANIE: That makes a lot of sense. It's different from saying, "This is how we do things here," and expecting them to adapt or, you know, change to fit into that style or culture, and being open to letting it evolve based on the new team, the new people on the team and what they might be bringing to the table. I like to ask the question, "What do you need to know?" Or "What do you need to be successful?" as opposed to telling them what I think they need [laughs]. I think that is something that I actually kind of recently, not regret exactly, but I was kind of helping out some folks who were going to be joining the team and just trying to, like, shove all this information down their throats and be like, "Oh, and watch out for these gotchas. And this app uses a lot of callbacks, and they're really complex." And I think I was maybe coloring their [chuckles] experience a little bit and expecting them to be able to drink from the fire hose, as opposed to trusting that they can see for themselves, you know, like, what is going on, and form opinions about it, and ask questions that will support them in whatever they are looking to do. When we talked earlier about the four different quadrants, like, the kind of information they need to know will differ based off of their task, based off of their experience. So, that's one way that I am thinking about to, like, make space for a new developer to help shape that culture, rather than insisting that things are the way they are. JOËL: It can be a fine balance where you want to be open to change while also you have to remain kind of ruthlessly pragmatic about the fact that change can be expensive. And so, a lot of changes you need to be justified, and you don't want to just be rewriting your patterns for every new employee or, you know, just to follow the latest trends because we've seen a lot of trends come and go in the Rails ecosystem, and getting on all of them is just not worth our time. STEPHANIE: And that's the hard truth of there's always trade-offs [laughs] in software development, isn't that right? JOËL: It sure is. You can't always chase the newest shiny, as fun as that is. STEPHANIE: On that note, shall we wrap up? JOËL: Let's wrap up. STEPHANIE: Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeee!!!!!!! AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Night vision. Superhuman strength. And… kale salad? In episode 95 of Overthink, Ellie and David explore the weird world of biohackers, who leverage science and technology to optimize their bodies. The movement raises rich philosophical questions, from the blurry ethics of self-experimentation, to the consequences of extreme Cartesian dualism, to the awkward tension in our technological nostalgia for a pastoral paradise. If biohacking taps into the basic human desire to experience and investigate, it perhaps also pushes too far toward transcending our bodies. The stakes are political, metaphysical, and ethical — and your hosts are here to make philosophical sense of it all.Works DiscussedDave Asprey, Smarter Not HarderAlison Gopnik, The Philosophical BabyMirjam Grewe-Salfeld, Biohacking, Bodies, and Do-It-YourselfMichel de Montaigne, "Of Experience"Max More, The Transhumanist ReaderJoel Michael Reynolds, "Genopower: On Genomics, Disability, and Impairment"Smithsonian Mag, “200 Frozen Heads and Bodies Await Revival at This Arizona Cryonics Facility”Baruch de Spinoza, EthicsWashington Post, “The Key to Glorifying a Questionable Diet? Be a tech bro and call it ‘biohacking'"Patricia J. Zettler et. al., “Regulating genetic biohacking”Austin Powers (1997)If Books Could Kill PodcastOverthink ep 31. Genomics feat. Joel Michael ReynoldsSupport the show

Key Takeaways:Christopher's journey and experiences around the worldFulbright grants and Christopher's participation in the organizationThe concept of cultural production and definition of artCultural Production and Language LearningSoft Power vs. Hard PowerDescartes and Computational Theory of MindExtended Mind and Ecological ValidityThe dawn of AIArt and PhilosophyFluxus and its influence on art, its disruption of traditional art forms and relationships.Embracing ComplexityTweetable Quotes:“I think that God is something like the middle voice, and it's something like sunsets.”— Christopher“Cognition is not something that's constrained. This is, from the ecological perspective, from the extended theory of mind perspective, cognition is a distributed process.” - Christopher“The environment is too complex to control.”  — Christopher“So, are we fundamentally irrational? I think that there are parts of us that are profoundly irrational and that the rational parts of us have an incredibly difficult time wrapping our rational minds around. But I think that we're also rational.” — Christopher“My personal belief is that Descartes was not as dualistic and sort of Cartesian as history has painted him to be.” — Christopher“The hardest part about taking a very long trip around the world is leaving; the hardest part is just clearing your calendar enough to get away.” — Christopher“Complexity is simple rules playing out at scale. The simplicity and the fullness, and that it's really beautiful to embrace complexity.” - Christopher"To engineer something is hard power. Soft power is like cultural influence."— Christopher“Mind is not present in the object; it is only present in the subject.” — Christopher“Games are an amazing site for practicing, for using language. And then there's fan fiction and all of this stuff. So here's where we're starting to get into this sort of territory of cultural production.” – Christopher“So the world is getting more complex, it's getting more dynamic, and the questions emerging are like… It's incredibly non-linear, life is non-linear, and the rightness and wrongness of things has a lot to do with cultural preference like we described before.” - Christopher“We have this incredible capacity to process information, and we do it in ways that we absolutely cannot understand.” — ChristopherLinks Mentioned:Kurt's TwitterKurt's InstagramKurt's LinkedInChristopher DaradicsAndrew HubermanDan SiegelDescartesDuke StumpJack DangermondJane BennettJohn CageJohn LennonJulie SykesYoko OnoCenter for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS)EsriInstitute of International EducationPocket Guide to RevolutionSt. John's CollegeUniversity of Oregon

What is consciousness? What is God? Who are we? What is our purpose? How do we truly heal? Prepare to navigate the mysteries of our minds and beyond with esteemed guest and personal friend, Dr. Randy Scharlach, MD. In this episode, we dissect the inner workings of our identities, emotions, and perception of life and death. Our conversation takes us from the modern science of consciousness to the ancient traditions and practices that allow us to access the divine. With Randy's unique medical experiences, we venture into the transformative world of psychedelic medicines, their profound influence on our understanding of the world, and quantum theory's significant implications on our perception of consciousness. Randy also shares his experiences as an oncologist helping people at end-of-life care and as a psychedelic practitioner in dealing with trauma and loss. Join us as we discuss the future of consciousness exploration! Follow Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning ----- In this episode, you will learn... Consciousness is a complex, multidimensional concept that is intricately linked to our identities, emotions, and perception of life and death. Understanding consciousness can be a lifelong journey, but can also lead to profound personal transformation. Quantum theories suggest that our perceived physical reality might be an illusion, with the true fundamental reality being a field of consciousness that permeates the universe.  The exploration of consciousness through psychedelic medicines can provide unique insights and transformative experiences. These altered states of consciousness can help individuals connect with their inner selves and can even help in transforming trauma into spiritual growth. The division between science and religion, often referred to as the Cartesian split, has led to resistance in the scientific community to ideas of consciousness as a fundamental reality. The concept of God in the context of consciousness can be interpreted as the entirety of the universe, and our individual consciousness is a part of this universal consciousness, suggesting that our individual experiences are a way for this universal consciousness, or God, to experience the world. ----- Episode resources: Save 20% on my favorite functional mushroom, adaptogen, and CBD products with code EVERFORWARD at https://www.CuredNutrition.com  Save $20 on the For Today at-home male fertility test kit with code EVERFORWARD at https://testlegacy.com/everforward Get The Immortality Key hardcopy book here or the audiobook for FREE at https://www.AudibleTrial.com/everforward  After Skool video   Watch and subscribe on YouTube

In this 187th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we discuss the state of the world through an evolutionary lens. In this episode we discuss why we are sitting outside: Covid does not transmit outside, and this has been clear for well over three years now. Then we discuss story and storytelling, paths diverging in a wood, and the need for all stories within one universe to reconcile. We discuss narrative, gender ideology, male and female typical modes of engagement, and science. We discuss new research that finds that mammals, but not birds, seem to like fruit that contains alcohol. And we discuss the Cartesian crisis that we are living through, and the Maui fires. ***** Our sponsors: MDHearingAid: Use promo code DARKHORSE to receive a significant discount off your order of already inexpensive, high-quality hearing aids, plus receive a free extra charging case. https://www.mdhearingaid.com Sole: Carefully designed, personally moldable footbeds for healthy feet. Go to https://yoursole.com/darkhorse to receive 50% off any pair of Sole footbeds.  Seed: Start a new healthy habit today with Seed probiotics. Use code darkhorse at https://seed.com/darkhorse to get 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. ***** Our book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://a.co/d/dunx3at Check out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org Heather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.com Find more from us on Bret's website (https://bretweinstein.net) or Heather's website (http://heatherheying.com). Become a member of the DarkHorse LiveStreams, and get access to an additional Q&A livestream every month. Join at Heather's Patreon. Like this content? Subscribe to the channel, like this video, follow us on twitter (@BretWeinstein, @HeatherEHeying), and consider helping us out by contributing to either of our Patreons or Bret's Paypal. Looking for clips from #DarkHorseLivestreams? Check out our other channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWCKUrmvK5F_ynBY_CMlIA Theme Music: Thank you to Martin Molin of Wintergatan for providing us the rights to use their excellent music. ***** Mentioned in this episode: Hunter-Gatherer's Guide: https://www.huntergatherersguide.com Daemon Voices: On Stories & Storytelling, by Philip Pullman: https://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Voices-Storytelling-Philip-Pullman/dp/0525521178 The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken Casorso et al 2023. Seed dispersal syndrome predicts ethanol concentration of fruits in a tropical dryforest. Proc Royal Society B 290:20230804: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0804Support the show

Dr. Peterson's extensive catalog is available now on DailyWire+: https://utm.io/ueSXh Dr Jordan B Peterson and John Vervaeke discuss entropy reduction, incremental fact gathering, systems of complexity and the ultimate unity in the holy spirit. John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Toronto. His work constructs a bridge between science and spirituality in order to understand the experience of meaningfulness and the cultivation of wisdom so as to afford awakening from the meaning crisis. - Sponsors - Hallow: Try Hallow for 3 months FREE: https://hallow.com/jordan Birch Gold: Text "JORDAN" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation, FREE information kit. - Links -For John Vervaeke:Episode One of After Socrates: https://youtu.be/bIJuIN6kUcUWebsite: https://johnvervaeke.com/ - Chapters - (0:00) Coming Up(1:24) Intro(5:00) Entropy reduction(6:30) Friston, big picture cognitive science(9:00) Surprise and micro narratives(14:00) Domains of measurement(16:15) The problem with pragmatism(19:00) Incremental fact gathering(21:25) Spiraling pathways(24:38) Oneness, Piaget(27:25) Graceful degradation(31:30) Connectivity, network organization(34:00) Genome aging and mutation(36:00) Gist, mutual predictability(38:00) Nihilism, false arguments(41:20) Cartesian reality(43:30) levels of abstraction, meta games(46:45) Hierarchy of unity, internal dialogues(48:30) When a system complexifies(52:40) Overarching harmony,(1:01:00) Zombie complex, nature and function(1:03:00) The function of consciousness(1:05:00) Insight, relevance realization(1:07:00) Adverbial connections(1:10:00) God, Hermes, the burning bush(1:13:15) A multitude of goals(1:15:00) Acts of integration, profound synthesis(1:17:00) The ultimate unity as a spirit(1:21:00) Pluripotential Chaos(1:24:20) Pride and suffering(1:27:00) Self deception, heuristics(1:29:00) Cognitive evolution, static perfection(1:33:00) Distributed insight, humility(1:35:30) Zone of proximal development(1:37:00) The ides of the culmination(1:39:00) Generative being, logos(1:40:44) After Socrates(1:46:00) Conditions for relevancy(1:47:30) Practices of socracy(1:50:00) Profound emergence // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL //Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jordanbpeterson.com/youtubesignupDonations: https://jordanbpeterson.com/donate // COURSES //Discovering Personality: https://jordanbpeterson.com/personalitySelf Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.comUnderstand Myself (personality test): https://understandmyself.com // BOOKS //Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: https://jordanbpeterson.com/Beyond-Order12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-lifeMaps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning // LINKS //Website: https://jordanbpeterson.comEvents: https://jordanbpeterson.com/eventsBlog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blogPodcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast // SOCIAL //Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpetersonInstagram: https://instagram.com/jordan.b.petersonFacebook: https://facebook.com/drjordanpetersonTelegram: https://t.me/DrJordanPetersonAll socials: https://linktr.ee/drjordanbpeterson #JordanPeterson #JordanBPeterson #DrJordanPeterson #DrJordanBPeterson #DailyWirePlus